RIM responds to open letter published by BGR

By on Jun 30, 2011 at 3:55 PM
Breaking June 30, 2011

RIM on Thursday released its response to an open letter published exclusively by BGR. The letter, which was written by a senior RIM executive, pleads with the company’s upper management to make some drastic changes if it is to regain the mind share and market share it has lost in recent years. After questioning the authenticity of the letter — and we assure you, it is indeed genuine and its author has been vetted — RIM said the company is “fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities.” The response goes on to take an extremely defensive stance, listing various reasons that RIM is still in a strong position. The company also says its management is taking its current challenges seriously during this transitional period. “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,” the response concludes. RIM’s statement can be read below in its entirety.

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.

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  • Raphael Tal

    “who cares if our products and workplace suck, we are making lots of money!!!” is this a joke?

    DEAR KING, PLEASE STOP INVADING OTHER COUNTRIES; OUR TOWNSFOLK AND FAMILIES ARE DYING!!  king replies…. BUT LOOK AT ALL MY GOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  hahaha rim…… classic

  • Anonymous

    First paragraph talks about why the “high level employee” didn’t engage management.  Well the group who wrote this press release didn’t really understood the open letter.  The open letter states that there’s a culture of people not talking to anyone for fear of getting punished.  So which comes first?  The chicken or the egg?

    The second and last paragraph talks about RiM’s strength in form of strong balance sheet.  Yes indeed.  How strong will your balance sheet last?  Talking about “transitions” and “streamlining” means that people will be fired to strengthen your balance sheet.  No one is addressing as to how are you going to regain market share and people’s trust.  

    In my humble opinion, RiM’s response to the “open letter” is a waste of time.  They still haven’t gotten the message.  The people who organized the “response” is either living in a cave or has their head stuck under the sand.

  • Anonymous

    Once again they  are responding to share holders and ignoring their own employees and the end user.  What a joke, lol!

  • Anonymous

    Once again they  are responding to share holders and ignoring their own employees and the end user.  What a joke, lol!

    • Ramses71

      this sounds so much like the memos coming out of the CIO’s office… deflect, deflect, deflect (until we catch you). Mike and Jim’s memos are typically direct and no-nonsense (yes and sometimes arrogant and dismissive but they usually tackle the issue brought up to them). Typical AT&T approach to dealing with issues (which is where she came from).

  • Jen

    At the end of the day the Blackberry is not user friendly – Mine is only 2-years old and I cringe when I have to do anything remotely complicated. Last week my app store icon just disappeared and everytime I go to replace the software it says it is already there. I wish RIM would address the users…one letter from an staff and they are up in arms…but how many similar letters around user interface complaints do they have stored up.

    I have never been a Mac person, but I can honestly say I have never been so close to being converted…   

  • http://twitter.com/LetsTalkTablets Darryl

    I don’t understand why so many people insist on making it sound like RIM is going out of business or stands no chance at moving past all of this. Sure, they are dealing with some setbacks at the moment, in some cases even major setbacks, but in my opinion they might be bruised a bit but far from broken. If any company has the ability to overcome such incidences it’s RIM. They are a lot more advanced, innovative and powerful than some might realize. Have all of their choices and results been perfect, no, but what company out there can say they are perfect or haven’t had to endure a few bumps along the way.

    Ok, I’m beginning to sound a bit like I’m writing a new Rocky motivational movie about triumph so I’m just going to leave it at that lol. Haters will hate all they want which is none of my concern or business, but the above statement is just my 2 cents.

  • Nofluff

    RIM’s official response is very diappointing and clearly they still have their heads in the clouds and don’t see the disaster ahead of them. I think they should find the author of the open letter and promote them to Chief Trasformation Officer (CTO), reporting to a completely independent Board of Directors. This individual clearly has the support of the employees which is where the real work and innovation happens. Many Enterprise companies are already considering a shift away from RIM to products that people want and deliver what is expected.

  • Brendon

    Missed the boat totally! Where was the “Why?”… Template lesson of how to further frustrate your employees…

  • Mrguy

    Strange that being a Canadian company and a large amount of Canadians choose other mobile phones. I prefer blackberry.

    • Martin Cruse

      As I mentioned earlier I used to work at RIM and as such I have a lot of current RIM staff as friends on Facebook. And I’ve noticed that a lot of them – I can’t give you and exact number but it is a LOT – have status updates that say “Posted by Facebook for iPhone” and “Posted by Facebook for iPad”. These are people who get free BlackBerrys from their employer.

  • Skydnsr

    Going anonymous is what people do when they have no other options in a dysfunctional organization.  The original open letter seems sincere, concerned, and real.  RIM’s response, on the other hand, comes across as defensive and disingenuous.  Everyone knows that RIM’s offerings are falling farther and farther behind what customers want.  “While growth has slowed in the US …”  Yeah, it really has, hasn’t it?

  • http://twitter.com/adamzak Adam Z

    It’s a real shame.  The initial letter was written with such passion that I clung to every word and absorbed all of it’s potential meaning.  I didn’t even notice it until I was done, but this letter I started skimming about half way through and a voice in my head went, “blah, blah, blah…”.

    It’s really upsetting that the reply completely misses the point of the open letter.  It basically says, “Look you’re wrong, look at these statistics.  Numbers never lie.”

  • FormerCrackaddict

    This reply sounds terribly over-confident and typically “head in the sand” by RIM management.  Bottom line- RIM has lost it’s way.  As an until now proud user of Blackberry devices, I’d switch to an (Verizon) iPhone right now if I didn’t require global capabilities.  The reason?  As stated in the “open letter;” end user ease of use and functionality.  Plain and simple.

    Blackberry seems to have taken the last 3 years off, taking for granted it’s loyal user base.  If I can be swayed to iPhone, anyone can.  I’m glad I don’t work at a company like RIM, where upper management seems to shun innovation and employee passion.  Apple is heads and shoulders above RIM in terms of employee loyalty.  Android is hanging around and RIM should be ahead, but languishes helplessly as RIM management floats around like a former jock hanging on, hoping that everyone remembers his accomplishments years ago.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=683220045 Vladimir Bogdanov

    Lame

  • http://twitter.com/cghodo Colin Hodo

    If I were an exec at RIM, I’d be more pissed at this PR response than the open letter. Bragging about $3b in cash and no debt? Bragging about 13.2 billion smartphone cell (approx 145k per day) when Android is selling around 550k and iphone about 220k? No response would have been better than this.

  • http://twitter.com/Pacoup Pacoup

    “RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities”… doesn’t look like it.

    “there is much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products that are lined up for the coming months”… you mean the newly announced still running BB OS devices with no app future? Where’s QNX? Where’s the unified app development strategy?

    “The company is thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead”… eh, no? The company just cut 2000 jobs and is in a business on the verge of being eaten alive by Android and iOS combined.

    RIM management at their best. Again, RIM is consistently showing a blind eye to reality. They’re good as dead with that “our business is safe” mentality, or do they have a secret crazy phone with thousands of great apps coming up before Christmas that even the iPhone 5 won’t be able to rival… yeah, didn’t think so.

  • Johnbacon

    Seriously?  This was their press release?   I think management should tell me why my small real estate company should continue to do business with them!  I have 3 Driod Aps my “buyers and sellers” use daily.. have you heard of Safe Neighborhood??  Have you seen the Google Earth Ap on Droid? Those BB does business with needs to understand that our clients are switching and I cannot show up with a phone and plead ignorant when they say I just checked my phone and it says this or that…… we need to use the hardware our clients use because that is how we talk their language.  I still have one blackberry (and 3 droids) that I kept for quicker emails (remember in real estate, a consumer sends and email and if I don’t reply quickly they call another) but after the last 3 days I’m wondering how much business I lost!   iphone is sounding pretty good after reading up on their new email advancements!

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