An aging smartphone line, an inability to break out of the corporate niche, and the lack of any new product innovation are widely perceived to be eroding RIM’s business and stagnating growth. To achieve growth, many believed that RIM needed to branch out into the consumer sector; however, it may be too late as Apple is already firmly entrenched there.
How much of this erosion can we attribute to the mis-management by RIM’s co-CEO’s? They were, afterall, the masterminds behind the failed Playbook launch. It seems that RIM’s co-CEOs could not agree on who its PlayBook was for – RIM’s traditional enterprise customers, or for the vast retail market.
Did RIM’s co-CEOs lose focus?
“And the co-CEO’s extracurricular activities were almost too numerous to count. Balsillie was absorbed in one of his three failed attempts to bring an NHL franchise to Hamilton, and was also setting up otherwise laudable non-profit research institutes. Lazardis, meanwhile, was mid-wife to the Perimeter Institute, a world-class facility for pure rather than applied physics research – an apt metaphor for Lazaridis’ resistance to risking the purity and security of RIM devices with seamless Internet access, video streaming and music and game playing functions.”
