I kind of hate to keep dogpiling on Research In Motion at this point because the company is on the brink of a truly ugly implosion. Something you can witness in this video, which is real and RIM actually thought was a good use of money. I don’t really relish the idea of thousands of people losing their jobs, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe RIM’s leadership does.
But just in case white guys rewriting the honkiest power ballad ever with tech lyrics to make it even more nerdier than it already was wasn’t quite enough pathetic desperation for you, here is something Thorsten Heins, CEO of RIM, actually said in public:
“We have a clear shot at being the No. 3 platform in the market. Carriers want other platforms. And we’re not just another open platform running on another system. We’re BlackBerry.”
… That’s your rallying cry? “We could be number three?” This is even more pathetic when you take a look at market share as recently as, let’s see here, March of last year.
This pie chart says it all:
As recently as a year and a half ago, you were number three. Since then, you were beaten by Symbian. That’s Nokia’s OS, that they dumped for Windows Phone 8. Your product is being clobbered by abandoned software.
We’ll actually know more about what’s going on with RIM tomorrow: Their earnings call is scheduled for then. But honestly, if the CEO is getting up there to shout they might be number three… there’s little cause for optimism.