RIM CEO: company isn't in a "death spiral"
updated 04:15 pm EDT, Tue July 3, 2012
Exec claims nothing wrong with BlackBerry maker
Despite analyst downgrades, layoff announcements and a $518 million quarterly loss, Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins suggests there is "nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now," according to an interview with CBC Radio One's Metro Morning program in Toronto. The executive did make a distinction between the company as he took over as CEO six months ago and the company as it now stands.
"This company is not ignoring the world out there," Heins added, addressing criticism that RIM has made little effort to evolve to compete with current dominant platforms Android and iPhone.
The company is placing its weight behind upcoming devices that will be powered by a major revision to its smartphone OS, BlackBerry 10. Leaked images show two models: a touchscreen-only handset and a variant outfitted with a hardware QWERTY keyboard. RIM's last attempts to compete with the iPhone and Android devices failed to take a significant share of the smartphone market, leaving lingering uncertainty surrounding the apparent successors.
Alongside the half-billion dollar loss announcement, the company noted that its new devices will not be released until the first quarter of 2013. The launch delay was cited by some analysts as a motivating factor behind the stock downgrades, after the company's shares have already lost 95 percent of their value since peaking in 2008.
Despite the grim outlook from outsiders and rumors of spinoff considerations, Heins claims the company is not in a "death spiral" but rather "in the middle of a transition."
"This company is in the middle of it and I’m positive we will emerge successfully from that transition," Heins added. [via The Canadian Press and MobileSyrup]
