RIM’s old CEO is so impressed with BB10 that he dumped all of his 26.8M shares in the company

February 14, 2013 10:27 AM Jolie O'Dell
Jolie O'Dell

Balsillie's 26.8 million shares of common stock amounted to a 5.1 percent stake in the company. At one point -- literally in the days right after the first iPhone launched -- that much stock was worth around $6 billion. But, oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The spoils of failure: Former RIM co-CEOs net $12M after stepping down

June 15, 2012 9:20 AM Ricardo Bilton
Ricardo Bilton

While RIM can’t seem to do anything right as of late, the company has apparently mastered the art of the exit payout.

Just ask former RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who are set to receive a combined payout …

Don’t shoot the BBM: BlackBerry Messenger’s fate in question as RIM struggles

May 24, 2012 7:59 AM Ricardo Bilton
Ricardo Bilton

Amid RIM’s seemingly-unending struggles, the company has seen a light: BlackBerry Messenger.

RIM says that use of its proprietary instant message service has spiked from 5.3 to 55 millions users over the past three years, even as the Blackberry’s user …

RIM’s Jim Balsillie tried to reinvent the company, expand BBM, before he quit

April 13, 2012 7:16 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

It was a bit of a surprise when former Research in Motion co-chief, Jim Balsillie, resigned from the company at the end of March, but a new report today offers some insight into his departure.

Balsillie was working on radically …

New RIM CEO: We need substantial change

March 29, 2012 3:02 PM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

On his first-ever earnings conference call, newly christened Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins seemed to come to terms with the bad hand he’s been dealt and admitted that the company was in need of “substantial change.”

“I’ve been the …

iPhone beating BlackBerry in Canada shows how bad RIM is broken

March 23, 2012 4:27 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Research in Motion has lost its home field advantage in Canada to Apple for the first time ever, another sign that RIM is almost hopelessly broken when it comes to smartphone innovation.

The long-time co-CEOs and co-founders of RIM, Jim …

Dylan’s Desk: It’s the season for Monday-morning quarterbacking

January 25, 2012 7:00 AM Dylan Tweney
Dylan Tweney

If you subscribe to my newsletter you can read these columns a whole day before they appear on our website. And check out my other essays in the Dylan’s Desk series.

As the San Francisco 49ers fumbled their shot at …

BlackBerry’s leadership failure: The symbol of software’s triumph over hardware

January 22, 2012 10:35 PM Matt Marshall
Matt Marshall

The decline of Research in Motion‘s Blackberry smartphone, reflected in the resignations tonight of co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, represents the admission of failure — finally — by a leadership regime that had been in place for a decade.…

RIM co-CEOs will step down Monday…what took them so long?

January 22, 2012 7:20 PM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

After years of struggling to keep up with Apple and Google’s smartphone supremacy, Research in Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have said they will step down from the troubled phone maker on Monday.

RIM will replace the co-CEOs, …

Samsung would be crazy to buy RIM (updated)

January 17, 2012 1:47 PM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Imagine you’re a Samsung executive. You’ve just emerged from yet another Consumer Electronics Show, where your products and press conference were among the hottest tickets at an otherwise dull affair. Your televisions and phones have consumers drooling — hell, even …

RIM may oust co-CEOs as co-chairmen, says report

January 3, 2012 8:42 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

In what will likely be the first of many major power struggles at BlackBerry maker Research in Motion over the next year, the company is reportedly considering ousting co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie as co-chairmen of the board.

In …

Surprise! BlackBerry 10 OS is already being called a failure

December 22, 2011 2:07 PM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Research in Motion has become the mobile industry’s punching bag lately and today is no exception, with a new report saying its upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS is all-around awful.

A new report from Boy Genius Report asserts that the upcoming …

RIM sings a happy tune for Q3 despite falling revenue, dismal PlayBook sales

December 15, 2011 1:47 PM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Editor's Pick

Once again, Research in Motion’s attitude towards its dismal quarterly earnings sound inexplicably positive.

For the third quarter of 2011, RIM reported profits of just $265 million on $5.2 billion in revenue. That’s down from $329 million last quarter and …

BlackBerry service back online globally after worst outage in RIM’s history

October 13, 2011 8:20 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

BlackBerry users can breathe a sigh of relief. Research in Motion announced today that global BlackBerry services are “operating well” following a massive outage that began Monday and disrupted web, email, and messaging capabilities for tens of millions of customers.…

RIM cuts 2,000 jobs, shuffles execs — but will it matter?

July 25, 2011 7:50 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion announced this morning that it is laying off 2,000 employees as part of an earlier announced “cost optimization” program.

Additionally, the company is rearranging the roles for some of its senior management. Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis …

RIM exec begs CEOs to shape up, but RIM doesn’t seem to care

June 30, 2011 3:07 PM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

In a passionate open letter this morning, a high-level Research in Motion executive offered up some suggestions on how co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis could reshape the company and avoid certain doom. But instead of assuring the executive that …