Let's face it: RIM fell afoul of that most common of successful company diseases: hubris. And it fell badly.
The company was a tremendous innovator in its time. We take mobile messaging for granted now, but as little as a decade ago it was just a dream. RIM turned it into reality, making mobile messaging and e-mail ubiquitous and rocketing RIM into a leadership position.
But the world, as it frequently does, moved on. RIM, however, did not. Staying locked into a single paradigm, the company ignored anything that didn't fit into its view of the world. RIM made the classic hubris marketing mistake: convinced that because it invented it, the company's way was the right way.
RIM officials dismissed the iPhone in 2007, and continued to do so despite BlackBerry users jumping ship, to the point that BlackBerry has slipped to No. 3 in the U.S. smartphone market.
More importantly, RIM not only dismissed the competition, but also failed to recognize the underlying market trends that were eating away at its competitive strength:
1. The increasing power of the end user to decide on technology
IT is no longer calling the shots when it comes to smartphones in the workplace. Some of this is due to recession-based cost cutting, but mostly it's due to the increased flexibility of IT infrastructures to deal with hybrid models and products and the wide variety of productivity tools available to the different classes of users.
2. The diminishing value of mobile security
Corporate IT traditionally liked the BlackBerry because of its strong security. But in reality, a lot of IT groups have come to accept the level of security in iOS, and what is slowly emerging for Android phones, as "good enough." There are, of course, still large pockets of the market that still feel they need the extensive security and control provided by the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but these are being continually eroded into "good enough" environments.
3. The increasing value of personal applications
The introduction of inexpensive smartphone apps for business and personal use is a market wave that changed - and is continuing to change - everything. The combination of thousands of dedicated application developers and highly centralized app marketplaces truly means that there is an affordable "app for that"... as long as your phone is supported.
The smart phone guys (pun intended) made sure those app developers had everything they needed to provide apps for their phones. And increased their market share.
These market forces have made BlackBerry's traditional unique strengths less relevant to today's users. There is still a subset of the market that needs the security strengths of a BlackBerry, and duplicating those in iOS, Android, or even Windows Phone won't be easy. That gives RIM a window in which to play.
To be fair, I suspect that at least some elements within RIM belatedly came to the same conclusion more than a year ago, when the firm announced it would drop its legacy BlackBerry platform in favour of the QNX operating system it had purchased. But given the length of time it's taken to actually do anything with it, I doubt it had complete support within the company.
I talk about hubris as a corporate disease, because that's what it effectively is. It's very insidious, and usually starts with a level of confidence following successful growth. This "we can do no wrong" attitude at the top very quickly spreads throughout the organization.
It frequently takes a shock to the system to even diagnose it; sometimes it's a new leader with a different point of view, and sometimes, as with RIM, it's slipping market share. It can be cured, but the treatment requires a change in organizational culture. It requires a new vision, a lot of effort ... and time.
The QNX-based BlackBerry 10 OS is going to be critical. It has been delayed until late 2012, which hopefully gives the company time to get it right. Too many of their recent products have been rushed to market and suffered for it.
I wouldn't write RIM off just yet. If the new management team can truly get the organization refocused on the market - and not just products - and if the investors give them the runway to do it, then the company has a chance.
If not, we can expect to see RIM sold for parts.
About the writer:
David Lynch is founder of The Fios Group and former vice-president of marketing at Embotics Corp.
Internet site reference: http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/2012-02-07/article-2887952/Can-RIM-be-saved/1
