With Research In Motion’s stock in a free fall, and its marketshare eroding, we’ve started asking people for some perspective on what’s happening inside the company.
Here’s one thing we’ve heard from a source who has followed and worked with RIM on a regular basis since it was a pre-IPO company.
“The RIM guys are convinced of their brilliance based on the success of the past,” said our source. They look at what worked in the past, and think that’s what will work again. This is why we hear co-CEO Mike Lazaridis talk about BlackBerrys leading in security, battery life, and bandwidth efficiency.
Meanwhile, the market has moved ahead without RIM. Consumers have shown they don’t care about battery life as they buy up iPhones and Android phones.
Despite the shift, RIM’s business has performed very well. Revenue has been climbing steadily. Profits are strong.
And that’s the problem.
Our source says, “In business there is a weird dichotomy where success can equal failure. They’re superbly profitable. They look at revenue and profit and see a line going up at a 45 degree angle. From a management point of view they look at investors and say, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re complaining about.’”
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