More executives are leaving struggling smartphone maker Research in Motion, the company confirmed Tuesday. Alistair Mitchell, former second in command of BBM Platform and Integrated Services, has left RIM and Alan Brenner, senior v . p . in control of the BlackBerry Platform, will likely be leaving after a transitional period.
The new departures help to increase impression that RIM executives are fleeing to the exits. The BlackBerry maker has endured several disappointing financial quarters in a row as the company struggles to deal with the interest in Apple’s iPhone and smartphones based on Google’s Android in the consumer market, even while those items are increasingly invading the enterprise space once dominated by RIM.
Inside most high profile departure, former co-CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down from his position on RIM’s board of directors late a few weeks ago. Balsillie and former co-CEO Mike Laziridis had stepped down in January to produce opportinity for newly minted president and us president Thorsten Heins, but Balsillie’s decision to leave the corporation entirely used to be surprising.
Last month, the company also parted ways with David Yach, its chief software technology officer, and Jim Rowan, chief operation officer for Global Operations.
The ones were only the latest high-profile RIM employees to go out of. The Motley Fool’s Evan Niu now offered up a pretty eye-opening report on executives who’ve left previously year, beginning with former chief marketing officer Keith Pardy in March 2011. All in all, 11 C-level executives, senior directors, senior product managers, and vice presidents have bailed on RIM.
For his part, Heins is promising big changes at RIM in order to right the ship.
The BlackBerry maker promises to abandon efforts to go into certain consumer markets while refocusing around the enterprise and public sector segments where RIM maintains “a leading position,” Heins said within a business call with analysts to talk about send out fourth-quarter and fiscal 2012 earnings.
RIM “was late for the ‘bring your own device’ movement,” Heins said, explaining candidly that this company was caught off-guard under previous leadership by the growing presence of consumer-oriented smartphones like Apple’s iPhone in managed IT environments once covered with BlackBerry devices.
Their future rests on its upcoming BlackBerry 10 (BB10) software platform for future handsets and tablets, he said, pledging that this new operating system was on schedule for release later this coming year and will be the foundation RIM’s business for years to come.
BlackBerry 10 is RIM’s upcoming, QNX-based smartphone OS, which was originally meant to be available early this coming year but has been delayed on the fall. In January, RIM asserted BB10 will share developer tools as well as a screen aspect ratio with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
But when Heins promised a rosier future, he acknowledged that RIM’s present troubles required “substantial change.”
How bad would it be? RIM posted netting decrease of $125 million rolling around in its fiscal fourth quarter, with revenue of $4.2 billion slipping 19 percent from the third quarter and down 25 % from your same period in the previous year. For the twelve month, RIM had sales of $18.4 billion, down 7 percent from the $19.9 billion in revenue it reported for its fiscal 2011.
About Jhon Jabir
