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"Open letter to BlackBerry bosses: Senior RIM exec tells all as company crumbles around him"
To the RIM Senior Management Team:
I have lost confidence.
While I hide it at work, my passion has been sapped. I know I am not alone — the sentiment is widespread and it includes people within your own teams.
Mike and Jim, please take the time to really absorb and digest the content of this letter because it reflects the feeling across a huge percentage of your employee base. You have many smart employees, many that have great ideas for the future, but unfortunately the culture at RIM does not allow us to speak openly without having to worry about the career-limiting effects.
Before I get into the meat of the matter, I will say I am not part of a large group of bitter employees wishing to embarrass us. Rather, I believe these points need to be heard and I desperately want RIM to regain its position as a successful industry leader. Our carriers, distributors, alliance partners, enterprise customers, and our loyal end users all want the same thing… for BlackBerry to once again be leading the pack.
We are in the middle of major “transition” and things have never been more chaotic. Almost every project is falling further and further behind schedule at a time when we absolutely must deliver great, solid products on time. We urge you to make bold decisions about our organisational structure, about our culture and most importantly our products.
While we anxiously wait to see the details of the streamlining plan, here are some suggestions:
1) Focus on the End User experience
Let’s obsess about what is best for the end user. We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice — the end user doesn’t care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren’t hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work. Android has a major weakness — it will always lack the simplicity and elegance that comes with end-to-end device software, middleware and hardware control. We really have a great opportunity to build something new and “uniquely BlackBerry” with the QNX platform.
Let’s start an internal innovation revival with teams focused on what users will love instead of chasing “feature parity” and feature differentiation for no good reason (Adobe Flash being a major example). When was the last time we pushed out a significant new experience or feature that wasn’t already on other platforms?
Rather than constantly mocking iPhone and Android, we should encourage key decision makers across the board to use these products as their primary device for a week or so at a time — yes, on Exchange! This way we can understand why our users are switching and get inspiration as to how we can build our next-gen products even better! It’s incomprehensible that our top software engineers and executives aren’t using or deeply familiar with our competitor’s products.
I’m going to say what everyone is thinking… We need some heavy hitters at RIM when it comes to software management. Teams still aren’t talking together properly, no one is making or can make critical decisions, all the while everyone is working crazy hours and still far behind. We are demotivated. Just look at who our major competitors are: Apple, Google & Microsoft. These are three of the biggest and most talented software companies on the planet. Then take a look at our software leadership teams in terms of what they have delivered and their past experience prior to RIM… It says everything.
3) Cut projects to the bone.
There is a serious need to consolidate our focus to just a handful of projects. Period.
We need to be disciplined here. We can’t afford any more initiatives based on carrier requests to squeeze out slightly more volume. Again, back to point #1, focus on the end users. They are the ones making both consumer & enterprise purchase decisions.
Strategy is often in the things you decide not to do.
On that note, we simply must stop shipping incomplete products that aren’t ready for the end user. It is hurting our brand tremendously. It takes guts to not allow a product to launch that may be 90% ready with a quarter end in sight, but it will pay off in the long term.
Look at Apple in 1997 for tips here. I really want you to watch this video because it has never been more relevant. It is our friend Steve Jobs in 97 and it may as well be you speaking to RIM employees and partners today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY
4) Developers, not Carriers can now make or break us
We urgently need to invest like we never have before in becoming developer friendly. The return will be worth every cent. There is no polite way to say this, but it’s true — BlackBerry smartphone apps suck. Even PlayBook, with all its glorious power, looks like a Fisher Price toy with its Adobe AIR/Flash apps.
Developing for BlackBerry is painful, and despite what you’ve been told, things haven’t really changed that much since Jamie Murai’s letter. Our SDK / development platform is like a rundown 1990′s Ford Explorer. Then there’s Apple, which has a shiny new BMW M3… just such a pleasure to drive. Developers want and need quality tools.
If we create great tools, we will see great work. Offer shit tools and we shouldn’t be surprised when we see shit apps.
The truth is, no one in RIM dares to tell management how bad our tools still are. Even our closest dev partners do their best to say it politely, but they will never bite the hand that feeds them. The solution? Recruit serious talent, buy SDK/API specialist companies, throw a truckload of money at it… Let’s do whatever it takes, and quickly!
5) Need for serious marketing punch to create end user desire
25 million iPad users don’t care that it doesn’t have Flash or true multitasking, so why make that a focus in our campaigns? I’ll answer that for you: it’s because that’s all that differentiates our products and its lazy marketing. I’ve never seen someone buy product B because it has something product A doesn’t have. People buy product B because they want and lust after product B.
Also an important note regarding our marketing: a product’s technical superiority does not equal desire, and therefore sales… How many Linux laptops are getting sold? How did Betamax go? My mother wants an iPad and iPhone because it is simple and appeals to her. Powerful multitasking doesn’t.
BlackBerry Messenger has been our standout, yet we wasted our marketing on strange stories from a barber shop to a horse wrangler. I promise you, this did nothing to help us in the mind of the average consumer.
We need an inventive and engaging campaign that focuses on what we are about. People buy into a brand / product not just because of features, but because of what it stands for and what it delivers to them. People don’t buy “what you do,” people buy “why you do it.” Take 3 minutes to watch the this video starting from the 2min mark:
RIM has a lot of people who underperform but still stay in their roles. No one is accountable. Where is the guy responsible for the 9530 software? Still with us, still running some important software initiative. We will never achieve excellence with this culture. Just because someone may have been a loyal RIM employee for 7 years, it doesn’t mean they are the best Manager / Director / VP for that role. It’s time to change the culture to deliver or move on and get out. We have far too many people in critical roles that fit this description. I can hear the cheers of my fellow employees now.
7) The press and analysts are pissing you off. Don’t snap. Now is the time for humility with a dash of paranoia.
The public’s questions about dual-CEOs are warranted. The partnership is not broken, but on the ground level, it is not efficient. Maybe we need our Eric Schmidt reign period.
Yes, four years ago we beat Microsoft when everyone said Windows Mobile with Direct Push in Exchange would kill us. It didn’t… in fact we grew stronger.
However, overconfidence clouds good decision-making. We missed not boldly reacting to the threat of iPhone when we saw it in January over four years ago. We laughed and said they are trying to put a computer on a phone, that it won’t work. We should have made the QNX-like transition then. We are now 3-4 years too late. That is the painful truth… it was a major strategic oversight and we know who is responsible.
Jim, in referring to our current transition recently said: “No other technology company other than Apple has successfully transitioned their platform. It’s almost never done, and it’s way harder than you realize. This transition is where tech companies go to die.”
To avoid this death, perhaps it is time to seriously consider a new, fresh thinking, experienced CEO. There is no shame in no longer being a CEO. Mike, you could focus on innovation. Jim, you could focus on our carriers/customers… They are our lifeblood.
8) Democratise. Engage and interact with your employees — please!
Reach out to all employees asking them on how we can make RIM better. Encourage input from ground-level teams—without repercussions—to seek out honest feedback and really absorb it.
Lastly, we’re all reading the news and many are extremely nervous, especially when we see people get fired. We need an injection of confidence: share your strategy and ask us for support. The headhunters have already started circling and we are at risk of losing our best people.
Now would be a great time to internally re-brand and re-energize the workplace. For example, rename the company to just “BlackBerry” to signify our new focus on one QNX product line. We should also address issues surrounding making RIM an enjoyable workplace. Some of our offices feel like Soviet-era government workplaces.
The timing is perfect to seriously evaluate at our position and make these major changes. We can do it!
An “Open Letter” to RIM’s senior management was published anonymously on the web today and it was attributed to an unnamed person described as a ‘high level employee”. It is obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary and it is particularly difficult to believe that a “high level employee” in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner, but regardless of whether the letter is real, fake, exaggerated or written with ulterior motivations, it is fair to say that the senior management team at RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities.
RIM recently confirmed that it is nearing the end of a major business and technology transition. Although this transition has taken longer than anticipated, there is much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products that are lined up for the coming months. There is a fundamental business reality however that following an extended period of hyper growth (during which RIM nearly quadrupled in size over the past 5 years alone), it has become necessary for the company to streamline its operations in order to allow it to grow its business profitably while pursuing newer strategic opportunities. Again, RIM’s management team takes these challenges seriously and is actively addressing the situation. The company is thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead with a solid balance sheet (nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt), strong profitability (RIM’s net income last quarter was $695 million) and substantial international growth (international revenue in Q1 grew 67% over the same quarter last year). In fact, while growth has slowed in the US, RIM still shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry smartphones last quarter (which is about 100 smartphones per minute, 24 hours per day) and RIM is more committed than ever to serving its loyal customers and partners around the world.
I paraphrase...
"If it was a high-level employee in good standing, they would have brought up their concerns in the quarterly employee morale meeting with their direct superior, followed up by a one on one chat with their hr rep and director level superior for review...."
See, what maddens me, is that guy needs his ass promoted. He's pissed off, but cares. Guaranteed, his boss wants his negative nelly attituded up ass fired a week ago. He's a malcontent that doesn't get it!
Sadly, that guy, in 5 years is gonna pull that shit up when they are auctioning off the soviet style furniture and be like...told you bitches.
Honestly, it's sad to see a once market-leading company is doing this bad. And I used to think RIM is one of the only few truly innovative/well managed company.
The smart portable devices (phones/tablets) had its explosive advancement in the last couple of years and I guess RIM really didn't see it coming.
They basically dominated the smartphone for corporation back then because all the intuitive software they provided on their phones. But as iOS and Android started to expand, they didn't see the opportunity coming and missed a lot of steps and shipped many insignificant products.
I hope RIM can get better. After all, for consumers, the more competition there is, the better.
But from the response, it seems that they are in denial... simply stating what they have done and not offering any better insights.
From a personal perspective, I felt it was a really lousy official response. It would be better if they simply state that they are willing to accept criticism and would provide a determined dates to come up with some sort of actual actions, rather than stating what they have achieved so far with current management.
They have to get it... the problem this open letter want to say is... THE MANAGEMENT IS THE PROBLEM.
I for one love my Crackberry, can't live without it. If someone offer me a free iphone, I will sell it and get a BB instead.
What the letter said, especially the end-user experience, hit the spot pretty good. I don't actually mind not having the "game"apps, but for utility apps BB sucks major balls.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wouwou
I for one love my Crackberry, can't live without it. If someone offer me a free iphone, I will sell it and get a BB instead.
What the letter said, especially the end-user experience, hit the spot pretty good. I don't actually mind not having the "game"apps, but for utility apps BB sucks major balls.
Ok, once and for all, I gotta hear why people love their blackberries. I just don't get it.
If the user-end experience isn't there (meaning the GUI is lacking), what the hell is left that makes you loyal to it? All fanboyism aside, what does it do better for you, that android or iphone doesn't?
For me, all blackberries had going was the physical keyboard.. meant messaging and texting was much faster. Plus once I had it down I didn't have to look at the keyboard to type.. a plus in class. Other than that, I much prefer my iphone with its practically limitless entertainment and easy to use/functional interface. BBM was cool for a bit.. but I do fine with just texting. BBM to me was just a more reliable way of texting.. can't remember the last time I felt the need to send a voice message or a picture.
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Originally Posted by Hehe
Honestly, it's sad to see a once market-leading company is doing this bad. And I used to think RIM is one of the only few truly innovative/well managed company.
which market? NA? it was always a small market until the last few years when smartphones started to take off among the general populace (NA was always slow to adopt)
NOKIA FTW
I'd say Nokia is in a worse position but that isn't really true since they have an escape plan in place and in the process (although they are selling off assets... :/ and i think WP is going to fail... since it has been failing all this time) but even Elop was making fun of RIM so :shrug:
This "open letter" is all the buzz though even if its not from within RIM it describes the general sentiment out there in the blogosphere as well, everyone is saying RIM is dying although they still have a respectable marketshare
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Originally Posted by Shorn
For me, all blackberries had going was the physical keyboard.. meant messaging and texting was much faster. Plus once I had it down I didn't have to look at the keyboard to type.. a plus in class. Other than that, I much prefer my iphone with its practically limitless entertainment and easy to use/functional interface. BBM was cool for a bit.. but I do fine with just texting. BBM to me was just a more reliable way of texting.. can't remember the last time I felt the need to send a voice message or a picture.
I've played with my friends blackberries, those keyboards are awesome. Can't argue with you there and as for BBM, whatsapp seems similar, it's quick. Isn't that all BBM had going for it?
If the letter is authentic, and there's really no reason to believe otherwise, I would be taking it very seriously if I were a rim ceo. The voice of your workforce is powerful tool and receiving it in an undistorted fashion is nearly impossible, not only that, but the letter has excellent points.
Also, if RIM has 3 billion cash and no debt, but they have government surplus soviet furniture decorating their offices they need to start investing in their working conditions. If google has proved anything to the world in the last decade, it's that an amazing work environment attracts and retains talent better than any headhunter or HR vp ever could.
one of the biggest issues is process of developing apps for bb os. thats why bb is losing out,, iphone and now android has tons of apps. bb needs to losen its grip a little on app development
Ok, once and for all, I gotta hear why people love their blackberries. I just don't get it.
If the user-end experience isn't there (meaning the GUI is lacking), what the hell is left that makes you loyal to it? All fanboyism aside, what does it do better for you, that android or iphone doesn't?
If the letter is authentic, and there's really no reason to believe otherwise, I would be taking it very seriously if I were a rim ceo. The voice of your workforce is powerful tool and receiving it in an undistorted fashion is nearly impossible, not only that, but the letter has excellent points.
Also, if RIM has 3 billion cash and no debt, but they have government surplus soviet furniture decorating their offices they need to start investing in their working conditions. If google has proved anything to the world in the last decade, it's that an amazing work environment attracts and retains talent better than any headhunter or HR vp ever could.
I did my practicum at Telus hq on Kingsway, and they were starting to get it. They were updating everything to be a technology company, not a utility company. New decor, computers, and a pool table in the cafeteria. Not quite google, but a step in the right direction.
I used to work for a large logistics company..well, the largest actually. And these types of problems permeate any company that used to have a really good thing going on then lost it.
The worst thing that can happen is "business as usual".
For us, it was a license to print money. We had people stacked in every corner possible running around thinking they were important. We had a large client that just paid the bill and didn't ask questions.
Then the port strike hit.
Suddenly, we had to adapt and quickly. We had no idea how to do it.
Management was useless to the task. I actually got in a fight with the director of the company right before he outranked me, did it his way and lost 10's of thousands on a stupid maneuver. He got fired,I got promoted
They never got it back after that. We couldn't close the books on a bad year and call it a day. Suddenly, our customers were asking questions. They started developing contingency plans that involved not putting all their freight in one basket.
The point is, everyone wanted to get back to the good ole days.
And companies like Blackberry are doing the same thing. The same night I read this, I read an article that shareholders are wanting the co-ceo's to step down as co-chairmen of the board.
They won't listen to this letter because the bosses of the day to day operation are the heads of the board and are also the largest shareholders.
I've played with my friends blackberries, those keyboards are awesome. Can't argue with you there and as for BBM, whatsapp seems similar, it's quick. Isn't that all BBM had going for it?
If all you want is a physical keyboard MANY Android phones will have that in large scale or same scale as what RIM has to offer.
Blackberry's is a trademark now when one thinks of networking.
BBM is a great and classic feature like MSN messenger in the telecommunication world.
They just need to fix the stupid OS and I will be happy.
In related news, Nortel Networks patent portfolio was just sold. Initially it was thought that a single company would buy it (Google offered up $900 million).
Then it was announced that Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, EMC and Ericsson got together and paid a whopping $4.5 billion. RIM's share was reportedly $770 million and Ericsson's was $340 million.
Interesting that RIM paid that much money and also interesting they did it as part of a group of companies that are basically competitors in the smartphone market.
So what does this mean for Android, since Google, Samsung, Motorola and HTC were all left out of this deal.
I have both a BB and an iPhone 4 (from work), and while I do play with my iPhone when I'm bored, games, etc - I still end up using my BB a lot more. It's not just about messaging, but with the menus, etc, everything is so much more streamlined and integrated. Even firing off a text quickly, or responding to an email, it's so much quicker on my BB.
I just love on my BB how everything is integrated. I take a picture, and press the menu button and I can send it via email, via facebook, via whatsapp, via MMS. iOS only allows you to do it thru email or MMS. And if you want to attach more things to an email, it's easy to do - with iOS - there's a long workaround to do it.
Unfortunately, I've never had an Android Device, and considering how much of a tweaker I am, I think I will have fun with it.
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Had an iphone 3g and I can honestly say it kicks the blackberry torch's ass, in all aspects.
Iphone if you're taken, bb if you're single. I hate to admit it but bbm is pretty nuts, girls just seem more than willing to sext. The phone itself sucks though.
Say all you want about the poor management of RIM and how it turns out inferior OS' the company has zero debt.
What they need to do is get this ass on track with their blackberry playbook, I check their shitty app store every day to see if something cool worth downloading comes up...there is nothing! Only thing I've downloaded since buying it is Facebook. Web browsing is decent tho.
I will be switching from my iPhone 4 to the new Bold 99xx when it's released. I have so many devices that can do what the iPhone does.
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In related news, Nortel Networks patent portfolio was just sold. Initially it was thought that a single company would buy it (Google offered up $900 million).
Then it was announced that Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, EMC and Ericsson got together and paid a whopping $4.5 billion. RIM's share was reportedly $770 million and Ericsson's was $340 million.
Interesting that RIM paid that much money and also interesting they did it as part of a group of companies that are basically competitors in the smartphone market.
So what does this mean for Android, since Google, Samsung, Motorola and HTC were all left out of this deal.
it was probably more worth it to split than to start a bidding war. the portfolio would be way overpriced if a bidding war occurred. interesting how google was kept out of the loop though. guess google wanted everything?
Then it was announced that Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Sony, EMC and Ericsson got together and paid a whopping $4.5 billion. RIM's share was reportedly $770 million and Ericsson's was $340 million.
Interesting that RIM paid that much money and also interesting they did it as part of a group of companies that are basically competitors in the smartphone market.
So what does this mean for Android, since Google, Samsung, Motorola and HTC were all left out of this deal.
The companies who bought the Nortel patents are primarily hardware manufacturers with RIM, Sony, EMC and Ericsson being the major players. Software, not so much.
Ericsson North America's business unit was interested in buying out Nortel's patents in order to incorporate the technology it into their hardware designs. In regards to software, it will probably be re-engineered to a proprietary Ericsson language (AXE.) Nortel had a very lucrative and diverse portfolio of products, composed of both physical hardware and intellectual property/rights hence the list of buyers.
There are lots of things I wish were better with my Blackberry, but not enough for it worth to be worth spending cash on a personal Android or iPhone and usage plan.
Makes phone calls - Check
Does email - Check
Does google maps - Check
Plays music - Bonus
For me, all blackberries had going was the physical keyboard.. meant messaging and texting was much faster. Plus once I had it down I didn't have to look at the keyboard to type.. a plus in class.
well, for me anyways, the physical keyboard doesn't matter for me. I pretty much memorized the iphone keyboard and can type perfectly without looking, the only problem is that I don't see if it autocorrected into something wrong.
Due to work I was given all a blackberry and I have recently just purchased a Samsung Galaxy 2s and I have always been an iPhone user.
These are the top 3 phones out for their respective market
iPhone 4
Blackberry Torch
Samsung Galaxy S2
Let me tell you.
I use the blackberry for work so BBM is what it's used for....
Iphone 4 for everyday life
Samsung I just got it to check out the android system.
Let me tell you... The Blackberry is a piece of shit, we are talking about user interface sucks, old technology that is slow. ONLY good thing is the BBM which I am an avid user of. But since then it's starting to be replaced by whatsapp on iPhone and Android I am slowly using the BBM less and less. Also with iMessage coming out for iPhone in 5.0 I am sure it will make me use BBM a lot less.
I have been using i OS 5.0 for a while now and it have made the iPhone 4 so much better but of course minus the bugs that it has due to being a beta version.
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