I'm Canadian too. I don't know if it is terrible management or just lack of crazy new ideas. I remember just over a decade ago ... Nortel was doing quite well. I remember being at a meeting when I heard Apple was taking an investment from MSFT. I thought ... wow .. that's it for Apple. They're done for. And look what happened.
I worked in smart phones since the early J2ME phones hit North America. I too completely missed the iPhone. And I'm no suit. You can argue that I lack vision (you'd probably be right) just like the execs running the big telcos. Then again, I think the entire mobile computing establishment missed it. I know people in academia, at Microsoft, at Motorola, at Nokia, etc ... EVERYONE I KNOW MISSED IT! I don't know when people realized that everything had changed. This isn't a statement about just Apple btw. Google was also a new player in this space and look at their market share vs. the established players (circa 2000).
Honestly ... I'm a bit dazed. I can't believe I missed it. I'm sure neither can a lot of people and companies. I get a bit sad sometimes because it feels like it is too late to catch up.
"I don't know if it is terrible management or just lack of crazy new ideas. I remember just over a decade ago ... Nortel was doing quite well. I remember being at a meeting when I heard Apple was taking an investment from MSFT. I thought ... wow .. that's it for Apple. They're done for. And look what happened."
In the early to mid nineties, Apple spent fortunes on 'crazy new ideas'— it nearly bankrupted them. When Steve Jobs came back, he terminated all those projects and discontinued most of the product catalog. No more PDAs, stylus operated netbooks, printers, scanners, digital cameras -- all gone.
So no, trying 'crazy new ideas' won't necessarily save RIM. Replacing all major executives and the board of directors might. That's one of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple, and most of those execs are still with Apple now, 15 years later.
Steve Jobs came back to Apple as an advisor in 1996, when the company was in trouble. That's the period we were talking about (see "Apple was taking an investment from MSFT").
The iPhone was released 11 years later, when Apple had already become an insanely successful company.
I don't think I could have predicted exactly what would happen before the iPhone, but _after_ the iPhone launched I thought it was pretty evident that _if_ Apple managed to pull it off wrt the carriers (which they did), other cell phone companies would have a lot of catching up to do.
I always thought that Big Telco wouldn't be the ones bringing the innovation. I did expect that 3G would eventually reduce telcos to big data pipes (exactly their nightmare 10 years ago), but of course I couldn't have imagined that it would take so long to happen, and that it happened to fast once it did (how many sends MMS today?)
Very good point. Back in the old days (pre-iphone), I remember the conversation was ... oh no .. the carriers won't go for that. I remember getting slightly nauseated when I heard the amount of money made by the carriers in selling ringtones. Also, cellular data in Canada was ridiculously expensive (probably still is). I remember it taking $10 to download a single page off of CNN.
On J2ME, the early model was ... you had to pay 2K to get your app approved by the carriers. I was giving away some free apps in those days. I remember politely declining the rep I was talking to and thinking FU!!! You want me to pay you to get a free app into your store? The store that has almost no selection? This is before Ads on phones btw. Still ... many people thrived in that ecosystem. Anyone remember sites like Handango? Heh .. those were the days.
So ... the carriers still live. They didn't get what they deserved. The people who catered to the whims of the carriers are the ones who paid for it. There is a lesson in here somewhere.
> So ... the carriers still live. They didn't get what they deserved.
I don't see any way to make carriers "pay" until we have technology that can replace their massive capital investment (partially funded by taxpayers). The barriers to entry are extremely high.
Agreed, I worked at RIM in 2007 and the writing was on the wall even then. I don't know what it is, but it just seems like no Canadian company is able to sustain itself at the next level.
Yeah once they brought the pearl out and the drive towards the pube market I was of the same mentality. Also was only 2006 when somebody asked at a town-hall meeting about QA and iirc it was Mike who for all effect admited they had none.
Then in late 2006 during a backend upgrade they were rolling out they failed on a test, turned out that even before the upgrade they would of failed on that test as it was a outstanding bug and the role out had neglected to run the tests prior to the rollout. So once they rolled out they did the tests went op's and backed it out.
General fragle managment and no love lost from me who also left in 2007. But that was due to a incompetant manager messing up my expenses and leaving me the otherside of the World without a home to come back to as all my rent and council tax standing orders went tits up as I for all effect didn't get paid.
Since then I've been watching them go from epic fail to epic fail and still certain managment who are there are still doing there thing - clearly.
Sad on so many levels but in many ways I'll not stop until my ex boss is homless and that will happen, i'm patient :).
Essentially the Canadian business elite always wanted to set up protected markets where they could collect easy rent instead of competing on the world stage.
It's a mindset that is prevalent in all provincial markets (not the geographic type). There is zero that is special about Canada.
I see these same comments each time and it kind of burns me. Nortel went to conquer much of the world. Under that Canadian management. Then they passed their zenith and failed, like countless companies before. RIM conquered much of the world. Under that Canadian management. Then they passed their zenith and failed, like countless companies before.
To see the same boring comments every time that imagines that only the latter part happened -- completely ignoring the events that led to that even being possible -- someone showing the chip on their shoulder (e.g. someone didn't listen to their ideas. Damn Canadian management!)...it's just such garbage analysis. It is so shallow and instantly discardable.
Both of which conquered their respective markets with their "terrible management". Perhaps you have a chip on your shoulder, but your argument is self-nullifying.
Nortel headed to the shitter, it should be noted, when they recruited management from Motorola.
RIM went into the death spiral because they were committed to keeping BBM as their cash cow long after the world had moved on. They saw themselves as their own competitor, which is how you end up with products like the Playbook missing basic communication functionality.
Examples: Nortel, Corel