RIM's Sad Reality: Collapse Has Been Obvious for a Long Time
Let's be real: Anyone who's been paying attention isn't surprised by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion's recent collapse. It's unfortunate, but it's been inevitable. — On Thursday, RIM announced its latest bad news …
Context & Ripple Effects
The collapse ReadWriteWeb calls 'obvious' has been building in plain sight for over a year: Reuters reported talk of a leadership change at RIM back in May 2011, paidContent argued in December 2011 that the company needed to fire its co-CEOs months earlier, and The Verge's February 2012 post-mortem traced how the dual-CEO structure lost the empire. What changed this week is that the reckoning arrived on paper.
On June 28, RIM posted its first net loss in eight years, announced 5,000 job cuts, and delayed BlackBerry 10 again — while confirming the first BB10 device will ship touch-screen-only, abandoning the physical keyboard that defined the brand. A month earlier, the company had already pre-signaled trouble when bankers were brought in to help explore options. The Sunday Times' report that RIM might sell the handset business or split handsets from its messaging network remains unconfirmed, and one syndicated pickup suggests RIM is not interested in switching to Windows Phone.
First-order effects
- 5,000 RIM employees face layoffs immediately, and enterprise buyers and carriers planning BlackBerry refreshes must wait longer for BlackBerry 10, now delayed again with no keyboard flagship to anchor the launch.
- RIM's board inherits a formal strategic review with all options on the table — the first net loss in eight years converts a turnaround story into a restructuring story.
Second-order effects
- If the rumored handset-business sale or handset/messaging-network split proceeds, bidders get a chance to buy BlackBerry's carrier relationships and BBM separately — though both reports remain unconfirmed and RIM has not endorsed them.
- Carriers and corporate IT departments that kept BlackBerry as a third ecosystem alongside iOS and Android lose their negotiating lever, pushing volume toward Apple and Samsung-era Android vendors.
Third-order effects
- A breakup or sale of RIM would set a template for valuing a struggling phone maker's assets piecemeal — patents, messaging network, enterprise base — rather than as a going concern, shaping how future handset laggards exit.
- The pattern confirms that smartphone competition consolidated around two software ecosystems by 2012, leaving hardware-only differentiation insufficient to sustain an independent platform.
The trend: Smartphone platforms are consolidating around iOS and Android, forcing once-dominant hardware makers like RIM toward breakup, sale, or exit rather than independent turnarounds.