RIM desperately hopes to rewrite the PlayBook

WATERLOO (Ontario) - In a rare interview last week, Mr Mike Lazaridis, one of two chief executives at Research In Motion (RIM), was the one asking the questions.

"Why is it that people don't appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don't appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don't appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global? Why is it that people don't appreciate that we have 500 carriers in 170 countries with products in almost 30 languages?"

He wrapped up by saying: "I don't fully understand why there's this negative sentiment, and I just don't have the time to battle it. In the end, what I've learned is you've just got to prove it over and over and over."

Mr Lazaridis can point to numbers that back up his frustrated defence of RIM, maker of the BlackBerry. During its last fiscal year, the company shipped a record 52.3 million phones - up 43 per cent over the previous year - and its fourth-quarter income of US$924 million (S$1.16 billion) exceeded forecasts.

Nevertheless, as RIM prepares to introduce its first tablet, the PlayBook, next Tuesday, doubts about its future have arguably never been greater.

Some analysts suggest that RIM has lost its momentum and may now be heading downward, much like Palm, which was once expected to rub out the then-fledgling RIM. Current BlackBerrys are hobbled with an ageing operating system, and the company's market growth last year seems less impressive when compared with Apple's 93-per-cent rise in iPhone shipments.

In a world where applications have become a major selling point for mobile devices, the number of apps available for BlackBerry phones is in the tens of thousands, compared with the hundreds of thousands for Android and Apple devices. BlackBerrys are still prized for their email capabilities, particularly among government and corporate customers who rely on the devices' tight security. But it is increasingly common to find people who carry a BlackBerry for email and an iPhone for everything else.

"They've been caught flat-footed," former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassee said of RIM. "They are not idiots, but they've behaved like idiots."

Mr Jim Balsillie, RIM's other CEO, said that if it had moved earlier to introduce the PlayBook - a 7-inch, 425g, dual-core processor tablet - it could have improved perceptions of the firm.

Still, RIM has something Android phone-makers and Apple lack: Access to the corporations and governments that have been buying fleets of BlackBerrys for years. As on the BlackBerry, RIM will give companies control over the features and data on employees' PlayBooks, and the devices will have access to a high-security global data network.

And this loyal market may suffice for the Canadian company. Mr Balsillie suggested that RIM might no longer aspire to rule the mobile world, and hinted that having a piece of a fast-growing pie would be enough.

"How many people in the world have computing devices in phones, and how many do we have to sell to ensure that we're a rip-roaring success over the next five years?" he asked. "You'll find that you don't have to be all things to all people."

by THE NEW YORK TIMES
04:46 AM Apr 12, 2011

Source: www.todayonline.com