Proliferation of Choices Hurts BlackBerry Sales, Analysts Say
OTTAWA — Research in Motion's chief executives, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, frightened its investors Thursday when they said the company would not have new BlackBerry phones until late in 2012.
Context & Ripple Effects
The warning shot has been building for years: a 2008 piece asked whether RIM could rot with the economy, and in 2010 management publicly fired back at its critics. By May 2011 the criticism had turned inward, with talk of a change at the top surfacing as the company struggled.
What changed this week is timing, not just positioning: co-chiefs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie told investors there will be no new BlackBerry phones until late 2012, while analysts diagnose a more immediate ailment — a proliferation of rival device choices pulling buyers away. BlackBerry 7 already sputtered after a strong launch, and RIM sits squeezed between Apple and Android's Ice Cream Sandwich.
First-order effects
- Investors took the late-2012 product gap badly: RIM enters 2012 with a sputtering BlackBerry 7 lineup and nothing new to counter Apple's iPhone or Ice Cream Sandwich Android handsets.
- Analysts' choice-glut diagnosis shifts the sales story from execution to assortment — every carrier shelf slot BlackBerry fails to win goes to a rival device.
Second-order effects
- Carriers and subscribers facing a year-long hardware drought have little reason to wait, accelerating defection to iOS and Android ecosystems and compounding the sales decline analysts describe.
- The extended gap sharpens the leadership question raised in May 2011, putting Lazaridis and Balsillie under renewed investor pressure precisely when they promised patience until late 2012.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the smartphone market consolidates around two ecosystems, leaving single-platform challengers unable to survive long product gaps — RIM's Nortel patent purchase earlier in 2011 shows the portfolio, not just the handsets, becoming the asset of record.
- A prolonged drought forces RIM toward structural options — licensing, partnerships, or asset monetization — rather than a purely device-led recovery.
The trend: Smartphone competition is consolidating around the Apple and Android ecosystems, punishing any platform that cannot sustain an annual device cadence.