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Impassioned open letter to RIM supposedly from an exec
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RIM’s response proving 1.
This sounds eerily like what Nokia’s tepid market response to the iPhone threat was in the last few years and look how well that turned out for them.
I’m not a smartphone afficiando, but what was said in the response that was so bad? I was actually surprised to read they had that much banked and no debt. I’m not questioning just very curious.
The response is bad because it attacked the author of the open letter (implying that the author is not in good standing), then follows up with a form-letter-reply (aggressively blah blah challenges).
Exactly. It’s full of “there’s nothing wrong! we’re losing market share like crazy but we still have lots of money” denial and empty corp-speak.
Wow. No offense but you just fell completely for the marketing mind trick they pulled in that response. The open letter didn’t talk about RIM’s financial situation at all, so it’s presence in the response is nothing more then a marketing “Look at this very positive news that is completely unrelated to the issues put forth. Are you distracted yet?”
On topic, my last two phones have been blackberries and while I like the hardware, I’m in complete agreement that the apps are ass compared to what’s available for Apple and Android. My next phone is probably going to be an Android phone and that’s solely because I can’t have Skype on my BB.
Well, really, what are they going to say? “Yes, we agree with this anonymous open letter that we suck, and we’re going to start firing a bunch of people effective immediately. We certainly want to emphasize to all our employees that writing letters to the media is the best way to communicate their concerns and ensure action from top management.”?
They have to poo-poo it or ignore it.
You don’t respond to that shit and if you do, you better have some answers.
Yes, that was what my question was more geared towards… what could they have said beyond the generic marketing crap you always hear?
Well, they had a slightly more personable but almost equally meaningless response to developer frustration.
You are correct. However for something like this there are two kind of generic marketing crap you can use.
1: Express dissapointment on how the employee felt the need to use this way of communication and make some vague statements on vaguer actions you might do to address the issues. => Says nothing but doesn’t pretend everything is fine
2: Deny that the issues presented exist by attacking the sender, ignoring to talk about them and engage in some furious mind trick handwaving. => Also says nothing but does pretend everything is fine.
The second one is worse because it shows that management is actively trying to fool everyone including itself that things are going peachy. If you consider the content of the original letter, ie top management being disconnected from reality, making a public response that actually reinforces that impression is a bad idea.
But honestly, I had a bad feeling about RiM for a while now. Has their market share been shrinking?
Don’t know about market share, but RIM’s NASDAQ share price has dropped from $70 to $28 since Feb 2011 and is at it lowest value since late 2006.
2010 Q4 Smartphone OS market share courtesy of Wikipedia:
Source:Canalys
More pretty pictures:
If those figures are accurate, the leaders at RIM only see growth, so may be blind to systemic issues within the business.
Yet the share price shows a very different trend, however, one that is much harder to ignore when you have shareholders to answer to.
Hmmm. RIM’s core business is secure devices for enterprise use.
From an enterprise perspective, I care that the Blackberry is Secure (a concern that RIM’s best customer - The US Government - shares) not what apps it runs. Send and receive phonecalls? send and receive email securely? Tools to allow me to lock down and wipe the device full of corporate data a SrVP left in a cab? Yes. Yes and Yes.
The conversation starts when a rival emerges who does enterprise security as well as RIM does.
It would be nice if BB’s were as cool and fun as iPhones or Andriods, but that is not what their main customers (government and industry) buy them for.
When RIM goes out of its comfort zone is when it stumbles - the Storm was an abomination, and I don’t know about how well the actual device works, but the Playbook was/is bound to fail.
What is Symbian? How is it’s market share so high? I don’t think I know a single person with a Nokia smartphone, I wasn’t even aware they existed.
Symbian is what Nokia phones (used to) run. You don’t know anybody that uses one because you don’t live in Europe. (Or in a subcontinent.)
RIM’s core business is secure devices for enterprise use.
Very good point, Apple is miles and miles behind the curve when it comes to Enterprise friendliness.
But the author of the letter raises a good point. Increasingly, which devices are allowed access to a Corporate network is being driven by the End User. When the CxO tells IT to make their ipad work, thoughts of security can go out the door.
Some agencies will always be exceptions to this of course.
Symbian is what Nokia phones (used to) run. You don’t know anybody that uses one because you don’t live in Europe. (Or in a subcontinent.)
This is what makes the Nokia/Microsoft partnership so odd. Nokia have placed all their eggs in the Windows Mobile basket, yet Symbian still enjoys great market share, particularly in Europe. Things will get worse before they get better at Nokia.