“Research In Motion succumbed to rising shareholder pressure on Thursday, agreeing to study a split of its co-chair and co-chief executive roles and dodging a showdown at its annual meeting,” Alastair Sharp reports for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Who’d they get for that job, Jack Horner?
Sharp reports, “The two roles have been shared by Jim Balsillie and co-founder Mike Lazaridis since December, to the dismay of investors watching the Canadian BlackBerry maker struggle to compete against Apple and Google. RIM said in a statement it would establish a committee of independent directors to study the executive and board roles, and make recommendations for a revised corporate structure.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, sorry, plural: palaeontologists.
Sharp reports, “RIM’s committee must make its report public by January 31, 2012 and the board will have 30 days to respond.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This smacks of a government “solution.” Whenever a problem is too difficult to address, call for a “study” by “experts” with results to be presented months or years off. Then, hope everyone forgets about it or gets distracted by the next crisis.
Delay and hope it goes away; all expenses paid.
In this case, however, RIM shareholders – poor bastages – likely won’t forget about it, not with their money in play. All this bullshit “study” will do is hasten DCW RIM’s demise as the dysfunctional duo will now survive for longer than they likely would have otherwise. RIM just guaranteed itself at least 7 more months of stagnation under ossified “management.” By that time – an eternity in tech time – and likely after iPhone 5 and iPad 3 (or close to it) debut, the walking carcass of Waterloo won’t even be able to crawl.
It is NEW leadership, not a “split” of current leadership, that is really needed… Therefore, this “study” is doubly BS.
Ken1w, you are so right. Having two chiefs isn’t the problem. Having two shitty chiefs who lack vision is the problem.
The RIM co-CEOs are such arrogant assholes. They deserve their rapid demise. How embarrassing to fall from grace the way they have.
Sorry about the shareholders (of which I am one), but this company is done.
I like John Gruber’s take: “So they have a plan, to create a committee, which will conduct a study and produce a report. Well then, problems solved.”
This is a paleo-proctology committee, who in the quest for dimmer light, will produce a scathing report blaming the media and not addressing the true problem.
By the time the report concludes they need to change we’ll be on the iPhone 6 and the iPad 4 and RIM’s marketshare will be down the pan.
They need to hire 2 more CEO’s to even it out.
MDN said: “This smacks of a government “solution.” Whenever a problem is too difficult to address, call for a “study” by “experts”…”
The difference being… with the Federal Government, you can always be certain that the experts called upon to study/address the problem are usually the ones (past or present) who created the fscking mess in the first place.
Years from now, future generations will dig a fossilized Blackberry out of the ground and surmise the nubbly surface must have been used to burnish animal hides.
Take 3 is right on.
RIM will be like a black hole. All things getting smaller and more intense with whatever can’t escape the “event horizon.”