Forbes: Jim Balsillie on '7 Habits of Unsuccessful CEOs Hall of Shame'
Forbes on the Blackberry Make It Seven guy: "...his company’s stock price dropped by 70% last year. Part of the reason for the sharp decline is that the BlackBerry’s US market share went from 44% to 9% in a year. Yet, what was Jim Balsillie focused on just prior to and after the iPhone was introduced? Buying a hockey team."
4 months ago
Dominik
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They forgot the whole "being a douche" thing.
Or is that rolled up into the hockey team remark.
Contributor for Lighthouse Hockey. Definitely neither the Sniper nor the Enforcer.
by ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles on Feb 10, 2012 5:45 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
If he HAD bought the hockey team...
…then maybe he could have just gotten back to work.
Does Gary Bettman holds stock in Apple? CONSPIRISY! ! ! one !
We may be in the box, but you get the penalty.
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For the record, I'm not exactly sure what he could've done for RIM
Blackberry is screwed – the best he could’ve done would be to sell/merge the company. That’ll probably still happen (I could imagine Google buying the company to manufacture their own droid phones), but now he’s lost a ton of leverage. But really, with his competitors being Apple and Google, Blackberry had no chance.
At least if he got a hockey team he’d be like Mark Cuban – relevant and rich even when the thing he got rich on went bust.
Writer at Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times
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They should've tried to integrate into android
instead of clinging to their dying OS that doesn’t offer Apps. They could still do it and find ways to integrate the features they have that people like (BBMing for example.) Granted android is moving away from custom UI’s but Blackberry could’ve gone over when that was still in vogue.
At this point they are basically dead in the water though if they want to cling to their OS without making Apps easier and worthwhile for companies to work on and release.
Definitely a poster at Lighthouse Hockey until 2015, then maybe somewhere else.
by ArsenalLI on Feb 12, 2012 9:04 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
It seems they could've adapted somehow
Even when RIM first exploded, it was clear the “Crackberry” would eventually have to make way for devices we’ve been seeing the past five years. They responded rather like a Baby Bell company instead.
Lighthouse Hockey: A flute with no holes is not a flute. A Dane with no holes is Frans Nielsen.
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