Just several days ago, Research In Motion (RIMM, Financial), the owner of Blackberry brand has announced that it has appointed a new CEO and president, replacing Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as co-chief executive and co-chairmen. The board of directors of the company said that the decision was made “on the recommendation” of succession plans put out by the two top guys of RIMM.
Lazaridis will become vice chairman of RIMM’s board and chairman of a new “innovative committee,” and Balsillie remains as a member of the board. The new company’s president and CEO is Thorsten Heins, who used to be the chief operating officer, overseeing the Blackberry smart phone portfolio worldwide. Before joining RIMM in 2007, he was the chief technology officer at the Communications Division of Siemens. And the new board chairman is Barbara Stymiest, who joined the company’s board in 2007.
On this transition, Lazaridis mentioned that it came to a time that RIMM founders recognized the need to pass the baton to new leadership. With Blackberry 7 out and Playbook 2.0 shipping in February and Blackberry 10 expected to ship later this year, RIMM was entering a new phase and the company felt that it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim Balsillie also agreed that it was the right time to pass the baton, and both of them had complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company. Balsillie remained a significant shareholder and director and the management would have his full support.
So with the ex-COO becoming the new CEO of the company, do we expect any significant change that can drive RIMM through the hard time it is facing now in the market place? In the recent interview with Thorsten Heins, he shared his planned action of driving and renewing RIMM through this time. He said that the company has made many changes already, beginning 18 months ago when it decided to go for a new platform and really revamp the entire blackberry experience and the entire blackberry technology.
In terms of change, he thinks there is a kind of polarized view on RIMM and Blackberry at the moment globally. The company is growing in the rest of the world tremendously fast, in Asia Pacific and Africa, and it is No. 1 in smart phones segments. Heins mentioned that the company needs to talk about itself, about how great its products are. So his first action is going to be to hire a chief marketing officer, a top-notch talent to consolidate all communications within RIMM, and then it would talk to customers, consumers and audiences much more than the company has done in the past. RIMM needs to talk about Blackberry, what the company is providing, how great the user experience is.
RIMM has grown tremendously for the last four years. The new CEO shared his personal experience that when he first joined the company, the employee number was around 6,000, and it had 20,000 people within a three-year period, so the whole company is poised for growth. The company has gone global with the design and research centers. So yes there were bumps in the road which any growing fast company experienced. Heins claimed that RIMM learned its lessons, has adapted a lot, and changed several positions also in the management team. People need to understand how the company works in the transition from big start-up to really going global and scaling up, and that was what Heins can provide the company with and what he can help the company with and that was what he was going to focus on.
RIMM just launched the biggest portfolio in the history based on Blackberry 7, and there was a huge step-up in terms of the performance of the Blackberries. The processors had been changed to 1.2 gigahertz, and the company introduced liquid graphics displays, latest web-browsing, and it is competitive and focused around mobile communications, mobile social networking.
Blackberry as of today is the No. 1 leader in wireless social media. The Blackberry user base has grown from 50 million to 75 million worldwide within just one year, a jump of 35%, so Heins thinks Blackberry 7 will carry the company through the next quarter. The smart phones which were based on Blackberry 10 were just the beginning of a whole new era of a new portfolio for Blackberry, and the management team will expand it globally based on that platform.
On the two founders’ support, Heins said that by Mike and Jim joining the board, they would advise him in their capacity as board members or rights of the board respectively. Both of them have formed an iconic company over the past 20 years or more; they have grown the company from $290 million in revenue in 10 years to $20 billion, which is quite an achievement.
Blackberry is an iconic brand worldwide, so he will work in his capacity as CEO; he will make strategic and tactical decisions around RIMM and Blackberry’s future and also seek Mike and Jim’s advice, as they have been in the industry for a long, long time. They have been very successful and he thinks he would be foolish not to use the experience and capacity that they have.
Readers can see the interview of the new CEO here.
Lazaridis will become vice chairman of RIMM’s board and chairman of a new “innovative committee,” and Balsillie remains as a member of the board. The new company’s president and CEO is Thorsten Heins, who used to be the chief operating officer, overseeing the Blackberry smart phone portfolio worldwide. Before joining RIMM in 2007, he was the chief technology officer at the Communications Division of Siemens. And the new board chairman is Barbara Stymiest, who joined the company’s board in 2007.
On this transition, Lazaridis mentioned that it came to a time that RIMM founders recognized the need to pass the baton to new leadership. With Blackberry 7 out and Playbook 2.0 shipping in February and Blackberry 10 expected to ship later this year, RIMM was entering a new phase and the company felt that it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim Balsillie also agreed that it was the right time to pass the baton, and both of them had complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company. Balsillie remained a significant shareholder and director and the management would have his full support.
So with the ex-COO becoming the new CEO of the company, do we expect any significant change that can drive RIMM through the hard time it is facing now in the market place? In the recent interview with Thorsten Heins, he shared his planned action of driving and renewing RIMM through this time. He said that the company has made many changes already, beginning 18 months ago when it decided to go for a new platform and really revamp the entire blackberry experience and the entire blackberry technology.
In terms of change, he thinks there is a kind of polarized view on RIMM and Blackberry at the moment globally. The company is growing in the rest of the world tremendously fast, in Asia Pacific and Africa, and it is No. 1 in smart phones segments. Heins mentioned that the company needs to talk about itself, about how great its products are. So his first action is going to be to hire a chief marketing officer, a top-notch talent to consolidate all communications within RIMM, and then it would talk to customers, consumers and audiences much more than the company has done in the past. RIMM needs to talk about Blackberry, what the company is providing, how great the user experience is.
RIMM has grown tremendously for the last four years. The new CEO shared his personal experience that when he first joined the company, the employee number was around 6,000, and it had 20,000 people within a three-year period, so the whole company is poised for growth. The company has gone global with the design and research centers. So yes there were bumps in the road which any growing fast company experienced. Heins claimed that RIMM learned its lessons, has adapted a lot, and changed several positions also in the management team. People need to understand how the company works in the transition from big start-up to really going global and scaling up, and that was what Heins can provide the company with and what he can help the company with and that was what he was going to focus on.
RIMM just launched the biggest portfolio in the history based on Blackberry 7, and there was a huge step-up in terms of the performance of the Blackberries. The processors had been changed to 1.2 gigahertz, and the company introduced liquid graphics displays, latest web-browsing, and it is competitive and focused around mobile communications, mobile social networking.
Blackberry as of today is the No. 1 leader in wireless social media. The Blackberry user base has grown from 50 million to 75 million worldwide within just one year, a jump of 35%, so Heins thinks Blackberry 7 will carry the company through the next quarter. The smart phones which were based on Blackberry 10 were just the beginning of a whole new era of a new portfolio for Blackberry, and the management team will expand it globally based on that platform.
On the two founders’ support, Heins said that by Mike and Jim joining the board, they would advise him in their capacity as board members or rights of the board respectively. Both of them have formed an iconic company over the past 20 years or more; they have grown the company from $290 million in revenue in 10 years to $20 billion, which is quite an achievement.
Blackberry is an iconic brand worldwide, so he will work in his capacity as CEO; he will make strategic and tactical decisions around RIMM and Blackberry’s future and also seek Mike and Jim’s advice, as they have been in the industry for a long, long time. They have been very successful and he thinks he would be foolish not to use the experience and capacity that they have.
Readers can see the interview of the new CEO here.
