New Blackberry chief plans change

The new chief executive of Research in Motion Ltd plans to reorganise the company's marketing in order to do a better job at promoting its products to consumers.

Thorsten Heins told analysts today that reaching beyond the corporate smartphone market to consumers will be
particularly important in the US market, where Rim's BlackBerry smartphone has lost ground to rivals like the Apple iPhone.

Research In Motion's Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie bowed to investor pressure on Saturday and resigned as co-chief executives, handing the top job to Mr Heins, a former Siemens executive who has risen steadily through Rim's upper management ranks since joining the Canadian company in late 2007.

The shift ends the two-decade long partnership of Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie atop a once-pioneering technology company that now struggles against Apple and Google.

With Rim's share price plummeting to eight-year lows, a flurry of speculation that Rim was up for sale has enveloped the company in recent months. But investors have pointed to the domineering presence of Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie as one reason a sale would prove difficult.

Activist investors have clamored in recent months for a new, "transformational" leader who could revitalise Rim's product line and resuscitate its once cutting-edge image. It remains to be seen whether Rim has found such a leader in Mr Heins, analysts said.

"It's the first positive thing that they have done in months," said Charter Equity analyst Ed Snyder, even as he expressed caution over the choice of Heins, a longtime lieutenant of Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie. "My feeling is that it's a figure-head change."

Michael Urlocker, an analyst with GMP Securities, questioned whether Heins had the right background for the job that faces him. "I am not sure that an engineer as new CEO really gets to the central issues faced by Rim," he said.

Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie also gave up their shared role as chairman of Rim's board. Barbara Stymiest, an independent board member who once headed the Toronto Stock Exchange, will take over in that capacity.

The pair, who together built Lazaridis' 1985 start-up into a global business with $20 billion in sales last year, have weathered a storm of criticism in recent years as Apple's iPhone and the army of devices powered by Google's innovative Android system eclipsed their email-focused BlackBerry.

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Mr Lazaridis said in a hastily arranged interview at Rim's Waterloo headquarters.

Both Mr Lazaridis and Mr Balsillie - two of Rim's three largest shareholders with more than 5 per cent each - will remain board members, with Lazaridis keeping a particularly active role as vice-chair and head of a newly created innovation committee.

Mr Heins said his most immediate concern is to sell Rim's current lineup of BlackBerry 7 touchscreen devices, deliver on a promised software upgrade for its PlayBook tablet computer by February, and rally Rim's troops to launch the next-generation BlackBerry 10 phones later this year.

In the longer term, he said he would push for more rigorous product development and place greater emphasis on executing on the company's marketing and development plans.

Reuters