2011 for RIM was a horrible year – outages, a lackluster reception to their tablet and phones for its upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS delayed till the middle of this year. Now, speculation is heating up over a plan to oust the two worst CEOs of all time from the company.
According to the National Post, a review by the company’s independent directors could see current co-chairmen and CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie replaced in the chairmanship role later this month after they had basically killed any chance for RIM to survive in a highly competitive smartphone race. They, however, will still be in their roles as CEO.
Both men have resisted past attempts to strip them of holding both CEO and Chairman roles – they do own 12 percent of shares and are the second and third largest shareholders in the company. However, their performance this year could be a big factor in splitting the two roles up.
Both men are single-handily responsible for the performance of RIM since the rise of the iPhone and Android. They focused on the wrong crowd – more on enterprise rather than the rising trend of consumers buying the phone because it is a perfect social networking phone with a keyboard. The PlayBook was too late to be released in the market, and RIM’s BlackBerry 10 phones aren’t coming out till the second half of the year is a big f**k up.
However, the new chairperson will have to decide – is RIM better off staying together, or selling the whole lot or individual pieces of the company. Also, is it better to dump the two co-CEOs and hopefully get someone who is a bit more competent than these two.
RIM’s future is hanging by a thread – and it could be the last chance it has to fix its problems, or we could say goodbye to the company for good.