Research in Motion, better known as RIM, used to be one of the most dominating smartphone makers in the world. But it's seen its market share — and reputation — flounder of late. So it wasn't that surprising that the company finally did what many investors were asking for: get rid of its co-CEOs and replace them with a new leader, former COO Thorsten Heins.
Some are already saying that it's too late for RIM, that mobile competitors Apple and Google are too far ahead, and that the company should essentially quit trying to market its own BlackBerry ecosystem and make some kind of soul-selling deal along the lines of Nokia's partnership with Microsoft. While that might be the best course of action, Heins has already said that getting the BlackBerry 10 (BB10) software and the next generation of phones out of the gate is his top priority. Short of some kind of surprise merger (Samsung? Microsoft?), it's BB10 or bust for RIM.
Heins' strategy is very risky considering the head-start RIM's competitors have had, but it has the biggest long-term potential payoff. Make no mistake, though: RIM will have its work more than cut out for it when the first BB10 phones arrive later this year. Not only will it have to show that it has a platform as good as iOS or Android — it'll also have to show that it has actual advantages over those other choices.
But RIM can't do that if it continues to stumble like it has in recent years. Here are four things the company should do right the ship and and start sailing toward success.
1. Narrow Your Focus
RIM has had the mixed blessing of being both a go-to platform for enterprise customers, thanks to its devices' utility and security, and a popular choice for many younger people because of the text- and tweet-friendly keyboard — not to mention that easy-on-the-cellphone-bill href="http://mashable.com/follow/topics/blackberry-messenger/">BlackBerry Messenger service. While having your products appeal to more than one demographic isn't directly a problem per se, it appears to have dulled RIM's focus somewhat.
This was seen most clearly in the PlayBook tablet, whose design and marketing was all over the map. It debuted without a native email client, requiring the user to pair it with his BlackBerry smartphone to use email. This, of course, presupposed that the person was a BlackBerry owner, and therefore likely a business user. Yet the marketing, advertising and even the name itself implied a tablet for "play," putting things like gaming and video playback top priority. What?
I think that at some point RIM, tempted by the lure of being cool to "the kids," started to push heavily in marketing to younger demographics, but the company has dulled its focus on its greatest strength: services and devices for enterprise and business. RIM should get back to emphasizing its roots by targeting business. If others recognize that those same products work for them personally as well, great. But first things first.
2. Build a Better PlayBook
I think it's safe to say at this point that the BlackBerry PlayBook is a bona fide turkey in the history of tablet launches, and RIM needs to shift its attention to PlayBook 2 (not to be confused with PlayBook 2.0, the software update that will supposedly "fix" the original PlayBook). The second version of the company's tablet must be in the works somewhere, even if it's probably going to wait until BB10 is out before it has its debut.
PlayBook 2 needs to capitalize on RIM's key strengths and be a true enterprise tablet. Ever since the Amazon Kindle Fire launch there's been a lot of pressure in the tablet market to take prices down to heretofore unseen lows. But RIM shouldn't just go cheap — it needs to offer a tablet that will actually be useful for business.
RIM already has its back-end enterprise services to offer, but that's a crutch. Heins needs to put himself in the mind of a business that isn't all about BlackBerry already. What do RIM's devices offer that business?
A new PlayBook could differentiate itself with something like near-field communication (NFC) to accept mobile payments. NFC actually has multiple uses, and so far no tablet has it. But that's just one idea. More broadly, RIM needs to put aside the J Lo videos and Angry Birds and pack the hardware with features that businesses will actually use.
3. Invest in Apps
It will be a Herculean feat to attract significant developer interest in BlackBerry 10, and RIM's going to need help. The recent move toward platform-agnostic HTML5 apps is helpful, but that helps everyone to some extent, so RIM can't rely on it. And the stopgap measure of having the PlayBook run Android apps is a bad idea — it serves more to undermine RIM's platform than help it. More direct action is called for.
App revenue sharing has largely settled on a 70/30 split between developers and OS makers, respectively. I'm not an economist, but it seems fairly arbitrary to me — what's stopping RIM from giving an 80/20 cut? Or maybe a 100/0 cut for a limited time (say, the first 10,000 downloads)?
RIM also needs to hammer on the developer community that, while its market share may be dropping, it's still significant. Add in some incentives like better revenue sharing, subsidies and better support than its competitors (and certainly less of a fragmented platform than Android) — developers will have a potentially great ROI on BB10.
4. Resist Temptation to Fast-Track
Probably the most egregious thing RIM's done in recent years to shoot itself in the foot in recent years is push out products before they're ready. This was most clear with the PlayBook, but the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm was a buggy mess when it was first released. Rumors abound of many more BlackBerry devices coming to carriers before they're ready.
Ever since RIM announced that the first BB10 phones would be delayed until late 2012, the criticism has been unending, and there will be tremendous pressure on Heins to fast-track the devices for an earlier launch. But he shouldn't. BlackBerry 10 and its accompanying devices need to be a hit right out of the gate if RIM is to have any hope of growing market share again. Heins has said he'll abolish the practice of putting out half-baked products, and he should stick to it. If he accomplishes that at least, he'll be well on his way to putting RIM's shaky past behind it.
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