RIM Chief Discusses Company Woes, Sees 'Great Future' with BlackBerry 10
RIM Chief Discusses Company Woes, Sees 'Great Future' with BlackBerry 10
It's fair to question Research In Motion's (RIM's) future and wonder if company CEO Thorsten Heins can right the ship. Skepticism comes with the territory when you tell investors your company lost $518 million last quarter, dropped $2.1 billion in sales compared to one year ago, and plan to cut 5,000 employees. Heins understands the grim outlook from those on the outside looking in, but from where he stands, RIM is a "great company" with a "great future" ahead of it.
Before looking to the future, it's important to realize what went wrong. According to Heins, RIM's mistake was putting too much focus on globalizing its smartphone strategy early on and not enough on its high-speed connectivity strategy.
"What also happened, in the U.S., was the drive to 4G started, and it got accelerated," Heins explains to CIO.com in an interview. "Carriers were actually leapfrogging from what they wanted to do with 3G, like HSPA+. They leapfrogged and put a lot of investment into 4G LTE. I think we weren't ready for it. We were busy building our global portfolio."
Going forward, Heins believes BlackBerry 10 will silence RIM's critics and "absolutely prove" once and for all that the company is still an innovative one.
"I think you will be writing that you are surprised by the performance and the user experience of the BlackBerry 10 product, that it helps you achieve you daily objectives but also have fun" Heins said. "I think you will be writing that if BlackBerry gets its execution right and straight then the company has a great future."
Read the rest of the interview over at CIO.com.
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