Waterloo, ON – The Board of Directors of BlackBerry® maker Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that, acting on the recommendation of its Co-Chief Executive Officers to implement the succession plan they previously submitted to the Board, it has unanimously named Thorsten Heins as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Heins was also appointed to RIM’s Board. The Board acted after conducting its own due diligence. Both appointments are effective immediately.
Mike Lazaridis, former Co-Chair and Co-CEO, has become Vice Chair of RIM’s Board and Chair of the Board’s new Innovation Committee. As Vice Chair, he will work closely with Mr. Heins to offer strategic counsel, provide a smooth transition and continue to promote the BlackBerry brand worldwide.
Mr. Heins said he looks forward to continuing to work with Mr. Lazaridis, globally recognized as a technology pioneer. He said, “Mike created a whole new way of communicating and I look forward to continuing our close collaboration.”
On the transition to CEO by Mr. Heins, Mr. Lazaridis said, “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now. With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”
According to a report in the Financial Times, Research in Motion’s board is preparing to oust co-chairs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie due to intense pressure from shareholders who watched RIM’s stock price drop over 75% in 2011. Independent director Barbara Stymiest is rumored to be the front runner to replace Lazaridis and Balsillie who will remain co-CEOs of the company.
BlackBerry DevCon 2011 kicks of tomorrow and it is expected the Research in Motion will officially unveil BBX, the QNX based next-generation BlackBerry operating system that Research in Motion’s future hinges on. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie made a bold statement regarding BBX claiming that RIM has “leapfrogged” the competition…
During his keynote presentation at the GITEX conference in Dubai, Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie this morning introduced BlackBerry Tag, new service coming to BlackBerry devices that support NFC which will allow BlackBerry users to tap their devices together and instantly share data such as contact information (including BBM contacts), documents, pictures, and even multimedia. BlackBerry Tag reminds me a lot of Bump, the popular iPhone and Android application, but, with the added benefit that BlackBerry users won’t have to install the app, as, it will be included in a future update of the BlackBerry 7 operating system…
Yesterday during Research in Motion’s second quarter Fiscal 2012 results earnings call co-CEO Jim Balsillie announced that a “major feature update”, BlackBerry Tablet OS v2, for the BlackBerry PlayBook will be previewed next month at BlackBerry DevCon and launch shortly after that. BlackBerry Tablet OS v2 is expected to bring the native email, calendar, and tasks support as well as the Android App Player to the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Rumors started floating around a couple of days ago that Research in Motion has renamed BlackBerry 6.1 to BlackBerry 7 just before its unveiling at BlackBerry World next week. Well, in yesterday’s inverstor’s call, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie confirmed that name change is indeed a reality because ‘It’s such a big update from 6′.
There is no question that BlackBerry 7 has a lot of new features, a lot of anticipated and welcomed features at that. The problem for BlackBerry 7, however is the same problem as when it was called BlackBerry 6.1, is the same problem that plagues it’s predecessor BlackBerry 6, and the same problem for BlackBerry 6′s predecessor, OS 5… BlackBerry 7 is still based on the same core operating system that was shown to be completely inadequate four and a half iPhones ago.
Research in Motion will launch the BlackBerry PlayBook, its first tablet computing device, next Tuesday, April 19th. Mixed reviews of the device have come in with the general consensus being the the PlayBook from a hardware stand point is quite good, but, lack of available applications and software, especially native email, contact, and calendar support, leave the BlackBerry PlayBook wanting. Native email support is coming to the BlackBerry PlayBook, but, it won’t be available at launch.
When Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsille, in a Wall Street Journal interview, was asked when native email would come to the BlackBerry PlayBook, he had this to say…
“We will have, if you want, a standalone non-web, non-paired email client on it within the next, I believe it was 60 days scheduled.” He also said that the Android app player will be coming “sometime this summer.”
I am still baffled that no one high enough in the food chain at RIM to make a difference, thought that launching the BlackBerry PlayBook without native email, a device who’s namesake is best known for its email capabilities, was an incredibly bad idea. So bad an idea in fact, that many reviewers are hard pressed to recommend to BlackBerry PlayBook to anyone that doesn’t already own a BlackBerry. It is good to know, however, that native email support is coming to the BlackBerry sooner rather than later.
