Research In Motion's co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie announced at the weekend that they will step down from their positions. The idea is a new captain at the helm will breathe new life into the BlackBerry maker.
The move may be too little, too late. The co-founders' dominant role in the company's management had already been up for discussion for some time, and several shareholders had called for them to step side, especially after the disastrous year just behind the company.
The ax has fallen now, and Lazaridis and Balsillie have been moved to positions where they will do less damage than as executive directors. Lazaridis will become the board's vice chair and head a new Innovation Committee, while Balsillie remains a board member. German-born Thorsten Heins will take over as CEO. He joined RIM in 2007, after a 23-year career with Siemens. In his previous role he was one of two COOs at RIM.The question is whether Heins, who has reached the top after just four years at RIM, can turn the handset maker around or if the problems are already so big at RIM a new leader won't make any difference. RIM's communications department produced a seven-minute film for Heins to introduce himself, but nowhere in that does he provide an answer to the pressing questions at the company.
While Stephen Elop said clearly when he took over at Nokia that everything was going wrong at the Finnish company, Heins offers such bland revelations as innovation is in RIM's blood ('sometimes we even innovate too quickly') and RIM will rank among the top three handset makers within a few years. He does acknowledge that RIM needs a bit more discipline when it comes to business processes. The company also will communicate its strategy more clearly to consumers. This suggests that the company is going to continue along the same path - exactly the opposite of what it should be doing.
Conclusion: Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stepping aside was only a question of time. Presenting this as a noble gesture to give the company more space is a bit dubious, and then naming one of the maligned co-CEOs as chairman of an innovation committee is near ironic. Putting a hand-picked CEO in place, who just as his predecessors sees no need for major change, is then a wasted opportunity.
