I'm not going to tell you anything that a hundred tech journalists haven't already told you. But I also get the feeling most of you don't read the same tech sites I read, so I don't feel too repetitive today.
Recently at work we've been talking about how companies have to be willing to change, sometimes drastically, to stay relevant. The business model that took you to the top yesterday may be the model that sinks your business today.
This seems to be happening more and more over the past decade. Newspapers, music, movies, and now books are all re-thinking their models.
At work we call this falling into the "sea of sameness".
I found a company that is sailing their ship directly into the middle of that sea, and it looks like they are taking on water. That ship is RIM. The company that makes Blackberry phones.
Remember the day when every business person carried a Blackberry? Maybe some of your friends had them. Maybe you had one.
Those days are changing. Now that Apple has delivered the iPhone and Google is developing Android phones, Blackberry devices are not the first choice for consumers. They are also, more frequently, not the first choice of business customers. That's bad, because RIM has built their base on business customers.
Yet, Blackberry is determined not to change. As the competitors were building a bridge over the sea of sameness, RIM was building a bigger boat. They think their cute little keyboards and small screens is what their customers still want. They're wrong.
They're going to sink. My comment to my coworkers was that I wonder how the employees at RIM feel. Are they sitting there wishing the captain would change the course of the ship?
3 comments:
Having managed RIM, Android, and iOS devices for our organization, I've noticed the same thing. We've abandoned Blackberries for iPhones. However, it hasn't been without its problems.
The Android and iPhone were designed first and foremost as a personal consumer product. The way user accounts are set up on those devices were never really meant to be managed as a fleet. Blackberry, on the other hand, had its own server software which an organization could install to managed those devices.
The versatility and capabilities of the new smart phones vastly outweighs the problems with management, and I'm glad we made the switch, but some times I long for the old days where I could set up or kill a device just from a server console.
OK, it must be early in the morning. I noticed lots of problems with subject/verb agreement in my previous comment. I'll point it out before someone else does. Usually my grammar ain't that bad.
RIM has strange culture and self distruct political environment.
In RIM if a new hired person figure out major problem and introduce efficient approach, both manager and his buddy group member will proof their wrong approach works. just like someone point out driving a car is right way, pushing a car is wrong way, then both manager and his buddy group member will hate you, and proof that 3 person can also move the car by pushing it. cheating email will be sent to some vice president, saying like: see, the car moving, pushing a car is a natural part of the process, in order to deny new hired contribution of introducing skill of drive a car, they have to deny merit of driving a car.
It is very strange company culture and strange company political environment, it promote stealing and cheating skill. RIM's management may be a typical instance in MBA course.
This culture deny or steal hardworking team members' contribution/innovation, generate strange political environment, destroy RIM.
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