BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Toronto, TAG — The new chief executive
of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion said Monday drastic change is not needed
after he assumed his new job following the departure of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who stepped down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of the once-iconic, but
now struggling company.
The RIM founders have been replaced by Thorsten Heins, a little known chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG.
 |
| Thorsten Heins |
The RIM founders have been replaced by Thorsten Heins, a little known chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG.
The
Canadian company turned the email smartphone into a ubiquitous device that many
could not live without, but U.S. users have moved on to flashier touch-screen
phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's
Android software. RIM has suffered a series of setbacks and has lost tens of
billions in market value.
RIM's
survival has been in question but Heins said he didn't think significant change
was needed and said the moves were not "seismic" changes. He said he
was committed to the vision and new software platform favored by Lazaridis and
Balsillie, who announced Sunday they would step down from the top jobs but
serve in other roles.
Heins
said RIM has to improve its U.S. marketing in an effort go beyond the
traditional corporate customer and attract consumers.
"In
the U.S. we were very, very successful coming from the core enterprise business
and in the public opinion this is still where we're skewed to," Helms said
on a conference call on Monday. "We need to be more marketing-driven. We
need to be more consumer oriented because this is where a lot of our growth is
coming from. That is essential in the U.S."
Shares
of RIM fell 3.9 percent, or 66 cents, to $16.34, after the conference call
Monday morning after initially moving up almost 4 percent in premarket trading.
 |
| Thorsten Heins with his wife, Petra and daughter |
RIM
said last month that new phones deemed critical to the company's future would
be delayed until late this year. And its PlayBook tablet, RIM's answer to the
Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support, forcing the company to deeply
discount it to move the devices off store shelves.
Many
shareholders and analysts have said a change or sale of the company has been
needed, but the sudden departure of the two founders from their top jobs wasn't
expected despite their promises that they would examine the co-CEO and
co-chairmen structure.
Balsillie
and Lazaridis have long been celebrated as Canadian heroes, even appearing in
the country's citizenship guide for new immigrants as models of success. They
headed Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM together for the past two decades.
Heins,
54, said Lazaridis and Balsillie took RIM in the right direction and said he's
committed to the new software.
"We
are more confident than ever that was the right path. It is Mike and Jim's
continued unwillingness to sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain which
has made RIM the great company that it is today. I share that philosophy and am
very excited about the company's future," Heins said.
Barbara
Stymiest, a former chief operating officer of the Royal Bank of Canada who has
been a member of RIM's board since 2007, has named chair of the board of
directors. RIM also announced that Prem Watsa, the chief executive of Fairfax
Financial Holdings, is a new board member. Watsa has become a significant
shareholder.
RIM
was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago but now has a market value of some
8.9 billion. The company still has 75 million active subscribers, but many
analysts believe RIM will lose market share internationally as it has in the
U.S. Market researcher NPD Group said RIM's market share of smartphones in the
U.S. declined from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011.[]
Related articles:
No Need Drastic Change: New BlackBerry CEO Says
Reviewed by theacehglobe
on
January 23, 2012
Rating:
Reviewed by theacehglobe
on
January 23, 2012
Rating:
No comments: