Tepid Showing at CES Shows RIM, BlackBerry at Crossroads

What can be said about Research In Motion (RIM) that hasn’t already been said? The company is looking less than stellar among the sea of iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 products. Numerous delays on new phones have caused even the most faithful of BlackBerry fans to abandon the platform, and the BlackBerry PlayBook was nearly a non-event. So what can RIM do in 2012? Here’s a closer look at what they’re doing, and what they should be doing …

Not too long ago we wrote about the possibility of RIM shaking up its leadership by appointing a new chairman and removing the CEO-duo of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie from the board. As of this writing, it’s still up in the air, but the decision to demote Lazaridis and Balsillie would be a shakeup, and any shakeup at RIM is a good shakeup.

At CES 2012, RIM’s presence was muted, with little more than some software improvements for the BlackBerry PlayBook to show off. Nearly nine months after its release, the PlayBook is finally getting native e-mail, contacts and calendar applications, which previously were absent if you didn’t also own a BlackBerry to tether your PlayBook to. This isn’t exactly progress, especially since RIM suffered an entire cloud outage in 2011. Worse, QNX (AKA BlackBerry 10) phones have been delayed until June 2012, although some reports say RIM is ready to wow audiences with BlackBerry 10 at Mobile World Congress. We’ll see.

I’ve long believed that RIM’s best option right now is to go dark and go insular. Retract from the scene and support your existing customers as best you can. Build something completely different — heck, manufacture an air of secrecy. It’s okay to emulate Apple in some ways. The problem with the current course RIM is taking with BlackBerry is that even if the new BlackBerry 10 phones are completely different from their predecessors, the BlackBerry name has been stained. Somewhere inside RIM, there must be some hubris preventing it from giving BlackBerry last rights. But if RIM really wanted to do something amazing, I think 2012 would be the best time to depart from the past and jump into the future.

As it stands, RIM probably can continue to make money from its enterprise mobility management software, but even with Android and iOS support, RIM must see the oncoming onslaught of security and networking vendors releasing mobile device management products. RIM is a company that needs to decide what kind of company it will be in 2012. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you don’t have to keep the same old dog in the race. RIM’s success as a company likely will hinge on BlackBerry 10, and if it fails, I could see RIM going the way of Palm: too little, too late, even if it was a great product.