The BlackBerry Tragic Downfall and Soap Opera

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Within months of moving to Dubai, I marveled at the setting sun.  The gym at the top of my apartment building faced due west, and running on the treadmill was a kind of race with the sun:  Could I finish my run, before it completely disappeared into the horizon?

I noticed, too, that as the sun appeared merely inches from the horizon, it seemed to drop, as if it were a coin you let go of.  

So it is with Research in Motion, maker of the ill-fated BlackBerry.

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40% layoffs, on tap.  100% tragedy, in the making.

BlackBerry Torch

A friend from Hong Kong eagerly awaited her new Torch, after its release in 2010.  Me, I saw a confused product strategy and a lack of innovation.

In July that year, I bought my first BlackBerry.  Why?  Because a number of friends asked for my BBM PIN, and at first I didn't even know what they were talking.  It was the well-used BlackBerry Messenger, which allowed users around the world to chat for free.  I bought one because I was embarrassed about not having one.

In the following month, August, word quickly filtered through the Middle East and the Subcontinent that the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India threatened to shut down BBM and heaven knows what else.  Why?  User data was housed in servers in Canada, which countries had no access to and thus, according to said countries, posed security risks.

My BBM friends were worried.  I looked into it, and surmised that the chances of such a shutdown were low.  I saw these threats as lame posturing by these countries.  For example, if it were in fact a security risk, why not shut the bloody things immediately, instead of projecting it until October, as the UAE had threatened.  

Rather, it was a business standoff, and in this respect, the government-owned telecoms in those countries stood to lose more, I surmised, by shutting down BBM and enraging hundreds of thousands of mostly business users.  

RIM must've worked out some deal, because these threats never materialized.

In any event, I stumbled onto a Torch presentation by the co-CEOs at RIM, and read more about this latest.  I saw back then, in 2010, that this company was going nowhere fast.

In December last year, I watched the full Forbes interview with new RIM Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben.  He strucked me as steely confident and plugged into the market.  He had a piercing look that made me wonder whether military stints were in his background.

Anyway I privately scoffed at the interview.  You see, the issues with BlackBerry were about execution, innovation and leadership.  Service interruptions affected me two or three times, but botched up manufacturing and delayed deliveries ultimately plagued users.  Marketing was, at best, a secondary issue.

It reminded me of how science has been criticized.  Suppose you were walking home with a friend at night, and you noticed that your keys were missing.  The last time you saw them were back at that nearby restaurant where you had dinner.  However, your friend  ambled a few feet forward right under a street lamp.  Why look there, you wondered.  Because, he said, there was light and you could see better.

So it was with Boulben and BlackBerry.  

Forbes must've been seduced somehow, because it resorted to hyperbole - Inside RIM: Participating In What Could Be The Greatest Comeback In Tech History.

Puh.leeze.

A comeback was unlikely a year ago, and it's even more unlikely now.  Sadly enough.

Prem Watsa

In 'Canadian Buffett' may struggle to save BlackBerry, Alistair Barr and Scott Martin reported that Fairfax Financial offered to buy RIM.  Prem Watsa, at the head of this offer, has been dub the Canadian Warren Buffet because apparently he was a successful value investor.   

So what are they planning for a dying brand?  Services, apparently.  

But I don't think Watsa is a Sam Palmisano, and RIM is most definitely not an IBM.  Palmisano successfully reinvented IBM into a services behemoth, although it is still very much a technology innovation company.  

So good luck with that.

Mike Lazaridis

Mike Lazaridis was co-CEO of RIM, before he stepped down from that role early last year, amid pressures for him and co-CEO Jim Balsillie to give up the executive reins.  Even though Lazaridis and Balsillie presented themselves as co-founders, apparently it was the former who launched RIM in 1984 and brought in the latter aftewards.

In BlackBerry Strikes Preliminary Go-Private Deal for $4.7 Billion, Will Connors reported that Lazaridis himself was considering a bid for RIM, either on his own or along with Watsa.  

On Google+ I retorted, Hey, wasn't he one cause of the brand's downfall?  

Arrogance, stubbornness, and ineptitude will do that even to the strongest of brands.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD