TechnesstivityThorsten Heins Is RIM’s New CEO, Jim Basillie and Mike Lazaridis Are Out
RIM has faced tough times in the last year. From its drop in market share of the smartphone market, to investors backlashing and BlackBerry Servers going down for half a week. RIM is finally making changes to its executive and later today, Co-founders and Co-CEOs Jim Basillie and Mike Lazaridis will no longer hold top positions at the Waterloo-based company. The Globe and Mail say Thorsten Heins will be in search of a new Chief Marketing Officer to fix the company’s damaged brand and he won’t rule out licensing BlackBerry 10 to other manufacturers. The question is do manufacturers want BlackBerry 10?
I’m not surprised at this actually, but Thorsten Heins says he’s confident in RIM’s current lineup of BlackBerry smartphones and the recent updates made to the PlayBook. As for Mike Lazaridis and Jim Basillie, Mike will be “vice-chair of the board with special duties to examine innovation” and Jim will be a traditional director. Mike Lizaridis also noted:
“I think it’s that unwillingness to sacrifice our long-term value for short-term gain. That’s why we didn’t choose Android. That’s why we decided to build the future on QNX.”
This means RIM had the chance to go Android and they didn’t go for it. I bet someone wishes time machines were real right now.
Here’s a video introducing new RIM CEO, Thorsten Heins:
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Source: Engadget
