With RIM’s Traditional Stronghold Under Attack, Balsillie is hoping to do a Counter Attack in the Tablet Space. But it would be much more Important to Ensure that the Smartphone Battle is not Lost Forever
Apart from his role as Co-CEO, RIM, Jim Balsillie is well known for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to buy a hockey team and take it to his home state of Ontario, Canada. For those who know him, he is the ultimate fitness expert and sports enthusiast. But one would certainly doubt whether Balsillie would count apples as one of his favourite things, given the tit-for-tat slanging match that Jim is into with none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
The match is now more than a mere one off altercation. First we give a quick snapshot of the prologue. Simmering sentiments were spurred among all competitors when Apple was in the midst of Antennagate, the negative backlash linked to iPhone reception problems. Even that time, Apple had chosen to make a generic statement to the effect that smartphones from RIM, Samsung and HTC had similar problems with attenuation and signal loss; a claim to which RIM reacted vociferously. The RIM standoff really started with the Apple quarterly result announcement, where Steve Jobs bragged that RIM would not be able to catch up with Apple any time soon. He got those bragging rights when Apple posted sales of 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter compared to 12.4 million Blackberrys (IDC). Also, on Job’s firing line was the Blackberry OS (RIM plans to upgrade to Blackberry 6 and also bring in the QNX for its upcoming Playbook tablet) as well as the concept of small 7 tablets (like Playbook); in fact he called the latter tweeners! Jobs said that with 3,00,000 applications on Apple’s app store, RIM had a “huge mountain to climb”. Balsillie has responded by taking potshots at antennagate, Adobe Flash (which Apple does not support), reiterated his confidence that 7” tablets will succeed and his belief that Apple’s app centric approach is no longer relevant, since all apps that developers really need are available online. He summed it up by saying that customers were now “getting tired of being told by Apple what to think” and dividing the world into people living within and beyond Apple’s “distortion field”. If recent reports are to be believed, Apples ‘field’ has extended to some of RIM’s enterprise sales personnel, who joined Jobs’ forces recently.
Apart from his role as Co-CEO, RIM, Jim Balsillie is well known for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to buy a hockey team and take it to his home state of Ontario, Canada. For those who know him, he is the ultimate fitness expert and sports enthusiast. But one would certainly doubt whether Balsillie would count apples as one of his favourite things, given the tit-for-tat slanging match that Jim is into with none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
The match is now more than a mere one off altercation. First we give a quick snapshot of the prologue. Simmering sentiments were spurred among all competitors when Apple was in the midst of Antennagate, the negative backlash linked to iPhone reception problems. Even that time, Apple had chosen to make a generic statement to the effect that smartphones from RIM, Samsung and HTC had similar problems with attenuation and signal loss; a claim to which RIM reacted vociferously. The RIM standoff really started with the Apple quarterly result announcement, where Steve Jobs bragged that RIM would not be able to catch up with Apple any time soon. He got those bragging rights when Apple posted sales of 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter compared to 12.4 million Blackberrys (IDC). Also, on Job’s firing line was the Blackberry OS (RIM plans to upgrade to Blackberry 6 and also bring in the QNX for its upcoming Playbook tablet) as well as the concept of small 7 tablets (like Playbook); in fact he called the latter tweeners! Jobs said that with 3,00,000 applications on Apple’s app store, RIM had a “huge mountain to climb”. Balsillie has responded by taking potshots at antennagate, Adobe Flash (which Apple does not support), reiterated his confidence that 7” tablets will succeed and his belief that Apple’s app centric approach is no longer relevant, since all apps that developers really need are available online. He summed it up by saying that customers were now “getting tired of being told by Apple what to think” and dividing the world into people living within and beyond Apple’s “distortion field”. If recent reports are to be believed, Apples ‘field’ has extended to some of RIM’s enterprise sales personnel, who joined Jobs’ forces recently.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
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