As if RIM didn’t have a tough enough to worry about at the moment, with falling handset sales and a middling response to its inaugural tablet launch, it seems the Canadian handset manufacturer now has to worry about rogue execs penning scathing letters expressing disillusionment with company management.
In a lengthy anonymous correspondance obtained by Boy Genius Reports, the supposedly high-level Executive writes –
“I have lost confidence.
“While I hide it at work, my passion has been sapped. I know I am not alone — the sentiment is widespread and it includes people within your own teams.
“Mike (Lazaridis) and Jim (Balsillie – the companies co-CEOs), please take the time to really absorb and digest the content of this letter because it reflects the feeling across a huge percentage of your employee base.”
The letter gives some rather pointed suggestions as to what RIM could do to improve its performance and competitiveness, including focusing solely on the end user and not appeasing carriers, wooing developers to beef up RIM’s lacklustre App World marketplace, and recruiting software experts to lead the BlackBerry teams.
The letter also takes a potshot at Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis’ infamous walkout during a BBC interview, asking the embattled executives: “Don’t snap. Now is the time for humility with a touch of paranoia.”
RIM, obviously slightly shaken by such pointed criticism from somebody who clearly knows the company, has published a response on its corporate blog – unfortuntely it doesn’t contain much in the way answers to the anonymous writer’s questions, instead it points out RIM’s financial strength, and expresses “much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products we have lined up in the coming months.”
