I wanted to take a minute to look at the Blackberry situation before reporting on it.
Earlier this week it was announced that Blackberry would not be bought out by Fairfax Financial, the company would not be going private, and that CEO Thorsten Heins would step down. Fairfax and other investors will be offering up instead a $1 Billion bond to help float the company, as its cash reserves are starting to dwindle. John Chen is stepping up to the plate as interim CEO, receiving a $3 million salary and over $80 million in restricted stock. John Chen was responsible for fixing up Sybase, a corporate data solutions company.
At its core, Blackberry has been facing a crisis of identity. Like Microsoft, BB missed the boat on the consumer driven data services market. Our favorite little tic-tac keyboarded phones were corporate sweethearts, but BB was late in attempting to crack into the general consumer demographics where Android and iOS dominate. The new BB Z10 was a first step towards offering up corporate friendly mobility which would be pretty enough for consumers to enjoy.
Of course it was not successful. Continue reading “Blackberry: An interim CEO and the illusion of action…”