A while ago Warren Buffett bought a whack load of local newspapers. A lot of folks didn't understand the decision, but I always did. Local newspapers give you news you will not get from national outlets. National news you can get anywhere, most of it online for free. But local news you can only get from local news papers (with limited access online).
If you want to know what is going on with a company, never ever turn to the national papers, always turn to the local papers. The local papers generally have real face-to-face relationships with the companies (and even some of their employees), whereas the national papers have generally only interacted with said companies over the phone or perhaps once or twice face-to-face. Those local relationships often result in news coverage that digs beneath the surface as to what is really going on.
In light of this, the Ottawa Citizen proves my point with RIM. They had an interesting story today that states that RIM is limiting summer vacations for its Ottawa staff (the folks working on BB10) and has implemented six-day work weeks.
This is an interesting development as it suggests that RIM is committed to BB10. In a previous blog entry in response to a reader's comment I suggested that BB10 was probably a lame duck as a result of speculations of lay-offs. You don't lay people off if you think your OS is going to kick butt.
In the blog entry I stated:
Is RIM going to turn itself around? Not a chance in hell. Not with a staff of 10,000-14,000 people. And remember, the 10,000 remaining will not be people in high spirits having watched their co-workers of many years tossed to the curb.
Yet, now that we've seen Q1 it appears that perhaps you DO lay people off, even if you still believe strongly in your upcoming product. RIM clearly is trying to strengthen the balance sheet until it can get to market with BB10.
The rational course of action for RIM, if BB10 performed poorly in focus groups, would have been to make the move to the Windows OS. So they must still have faith in BB10 if they are increasing the resources to its development (at least in terms of manpower hours).
While I generally see working employees harder and longer as a negative sign for a company (because it generally leads to disgruntled employees, where the talented ones leave) I'm not sure that this is the case with RIM in this particular situation.
The million dollar question becomes, has RIM, can RIM, rally one last inspired push from its employees?
If yes, then RIM may still have a trick up its sleeve and perhaps I'm wrong and they do have a chance in h ell. If no, then my guess is BB10 will never even make it to market.
If BB10 doesn't make it to market, or if it's an inferior product, then RIM is done.
But an interesting thought is what if BB10 actually is kick butt in the end? And what if RIM actually gets it to market earlier than otherwise anticipated (which is possible if their engineers are passionate enough and work 16 hours a day, six days week - hey, I did that for years, so it's not unheard of - and I can tell you some of the most amazing wins I had in PR were not purely because of me, but because I put the work in that others didn't).
You begin to see the rationale behind why RIM laid off most of its senior management. Given they were the folks that ran the company in to the ground, it's hard to motivate your staff to give it their all when their bosses didn't suffer any consequences for their poor performance. In addition, the last thing you need are those executives grumbling around the employees about so and so was the reason for RIM's failure (rationalizing why they were not part of the problem). No employee is going to give it their all in their type of environment.
On the PR front, what RIM needs to do in the very near future is start leaking demos of the various BB10 features (they need to convince people like me, who say they don't have a chance in hell, that they do). While this is not a typical thing to do, RIM cannot go the next 6-12 months with BB10 being developed in the dark and expect investors / customers to have 'faith' that the OS will be cool.
Nope, RIM needs to leak cool features of the phone as they come online. It's the only strategy that will generate potential interest by investors and customers such that they hold off on purchasing competitor products and wait for BB10.
Both customers and investors need to be given CLEAR reasons why they should hold on for BB10.
To date, the only leaked footage I've seen of BB10 is as follows:
I will say, the camera app seems very cool and the one-touch tethering of the BB to the television is beyond cool.
The keyboard isn't bad, but whatever, I hate soft keyboards anyway, so there's no pleasing me on that front.
Anyway, if BB10 can make it to market loaded with apps such as the above, then the predictions of RIM's demise may be premature.
The big question is whether they can make it to market.
I still think RIM is pursuing an acquisition, but they may have a dual strategy of maintaining commitment to BB10 as well (in the event that they can't get acquired).
Only time will tell, but one thing is clear to me on the PR front, RIM absolutely must start leaking BB10 video to remain relevant in the market.
If you want to know what is going on with a company, never ever turn to the national papers, always turn to the local papers. The local papers generally have real face-to-face relationships with the companies (and even some of their employees), whereas the national papers have generally only interacted with said companies over the phone or perhaps once or twice face-to-face. Those local relationships often result in news coverage that digs beneath the surface as to what is really going on.
In light of this, the Ottawa Citizen proves my point with RIM. They had an interesting story today that states that RIM is limiting summer vacations for its Ottawa staff (the folks working on BB10) and has implemented six-day work weeks.
This is an interesting development as it suggests that RIM is committed to BB10. In a previous blog entry in response to a reader's comment I suggested that BB10 was probably a lame duck as a result of speculations of lay-offs. You don't lay people off if you think your OS is going to kick butt.
In the blog entry I stated:
Is RIM going to turn itself around? Not a chance in hell. Not with a staff of 10,000-14,000 people. And remember, the 10,000 remaining will not be people in high spirits having watched their co-workers of many years tossed to the curb.
Yet, now that we've seen Q1 it appears that perhaps you DO lay people off, even if you still believe strongly in your upcoming product. RIM clearly is trying to strengthen the balance sheet until it can get to market with BB10.
The rational course of action for RIM, if BB10 performed poorly in focus groups, would have been to make the move to the Windows OS. So they must still have faith in BB10 if they are increasing the resources to its development (at least in terms of manpower hours).
While I generally see working employees harder and longer as a negative sign for a company (because it generally leads to disgruntled employees, where the talented ones leave) I'm not sure that this is the case with RIM in this particular situation.
The million dollar question becomes, has RIM, can RIM, rally one last inspired push from its employees?
If yes, then RIM may still have a trick up its sleeve and perhaps I'm wrong and they do have a chance in h ell. If no, then my guess is BB10 will never even make it to market.
If BB10 doesn't make it to market, or if it's an inferior product, then RIM is done.
But an interesting thought is what if BB10 actually is kick butt in the end? And what if RIM actually gets it to market earlier than otherwise anticipated (which is possible if their engineers are passionate enough and work 16 hours a day, six days week - hey, I did that for years, so it's not unheard of - and I can tell you some of the most amazing wins I had in PR were not purely because of me, but because I put the work in that others didn't).
You begin to see the rationale behind why RIM laid off most of its senior management. Given they were the folks that ran the company in to the ground, it's hard to motivate your staff to give it their all when their bosses didn't suffer any consequences for their poor performance. In addition, the last thing you need are those executives grumbling around the employees about so and so was the reason for RIM's failure (rationalizing why they were not part of the problem). No employee is going to give it their all in their type of environment.
On the PR front, what RIM needs to do in the very near future is start leaking demos of the various BB10 features (they need to convince people like me, who say they don't have a chance in hell, that they do). While this is not a typical thing to do, RIM cannot go the next 6-12 months with BB10 being developed in the dark and expect investors / customers to have 'faith' that the OS will be cool.
Nope, RIM needs to leak cool features of the phone as they come online. It's the only strategy that will generate potential interest by investors and customers such that they hold off on purchasing competitor products and wait for BB10.
Both customers and investors need to be given CLEAR reasons why they should hold on for BB10.
To date, the only leaked footage I've seen of BB10 is as follows:
I will say, the camera app seems very cool and the one-touch tethering of the BB to the television is beyond cool.
The keyboard isn't bad, but whatever, I hate soft keyboards anyway, so there's no pleasing me on that front.
Anyway, if BB10 can make it to market loaded with apps such as the above, then the predictions of RIM's demise may be premature.
The big question is whether they can make it to market.
I still think RIM is pursuing an acquisition, but they may have a dual strategy of maintaining commitment to BB10 as well (in the event that they can't get acquired).
Only time will tell, but one thing is clear to me on the PR front, RIM absolutely must start leaking BB10 video to remain relevant in the market.
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