TORONTO - Research In Motion Ltd.'s new chief executive Thorsten Heins says he believes the Waterloo, Ont.-based BlackBerry maker is on the right track and that the company's outgoing leadership tandem of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have left him in charge of a company capable of executing a long-promised turnaround.
In his first conference call since taking over as the president and chief executive of Canada's largest technology company, Heins said he plans to push forward with RIM's plan to transition its devices to a new operating system, and that while he's open to licensing the company's software to other manufacturers, he has no interest in breaking the company up and selling it off, piece by piece.
"This is an amazing company with a passionate and loyal global consumer base," Heins, 54, said.
"I believe that RIM truly has tremendous potential and we are absolutely committed to deliver on this opportunity. When I came to RIM four years ago, it was because we are not just a device company, we are an integrated solution company. We're not just a service company, we run a network. We run services and we run devices and we can create formidable integrated solutions. This is a very unique position in the wireless landscape."
Heins said one of his first priorities will be to hire a new chief marketing officer to help revive the BlackBerry brand in the United States. He said the company "needs to strengthen" its relationship with consumers there.
RIM announced Sunday evening that Balsillie and Lazaridis were stepping aside as co-chief executives and co-chairmen of the board. In their place, RIM has promoted Heins, who most recently served as RIM's chief operating officer, to the position of president and chief executive. Longtime RBC executive Barbara Stymiest, a member of RIM's board since 2007, will take over as the independent chair of the board, effective immediately.
RIM's decision comes on the heels of a terrible year for Canada's once formidable Blackberry maker, one that saw the company's stock slide more than 75 per cent as it suffered through the botched launch of the PlayBook tablet, a crippling service outage and the largest round of layoffs in the company's 27-year history.
Even the December announcement that Lazaridis and Balsillie would be reducing their annual salary to $1 as a sign of good faith was met with criticism from analysts.
The new president and CEO of RIM has been with the company since 2007.
He was one of RIM's chief operating officers until Sunday's announcement. Before that, he was senior vice-president of the BlackBerry Handheld Business Unit, where he played key roles in the creation of RIM's product portfolio.
Heins was born in Germany and graduated from the University of Hannover with a master's degree in science and physics. He is married and has a daughter and a son.
Heins said he believes RIM's strength lies not just in the company's BlackBerry smartphones, but also in the company's underlying technology, which includes highly regarded email and encryption technology favoured by the business world.
"Guys, I've been in device-only businesses before, and I know what it means to be in that segment," Heins said.
"Frankly, if your value proposition is the device alone, it is a cutthroat price and cost business. My view on RIM is very, very clear, we are strong because we have an integrated solution, we are vertical, we have our network, we have our services . . . and we have fantastic devices and a fantastic ecosystem that we're building."
In the months leading up to the departure of Balsillie and Lazaridis, there had been much speculation that RIM was considering selling off certain businesses, or indeed, the company as a whole. A number of the tech world's biggest companies - including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. - reportedly inquired about a possible takeover.
However, on Monday, Heins seemed determined to put rumours of a possible fire sale at RIM to rest. Still, he said he would be open to licensing certain elements of BlackBerry technology, if it made sense to RIM from a strategic perspective.
"I will not in any way split this up or separate this into different businesses," he said.
"On the licensing piece, I'm absolutely confident that BlackBerry 10 will prove itself as a platform, if there is requests coming towards Research In Motion about licensing that platform to other companies, I will entertain those discussions. I will listen. I will assess the business opportunity for RIM and if it makes sense strategically and tactically to go down that path, then I will make that decision together with the board, but it's not my focus one."
Founder and BlackBerry inventor Lazaridis will become vice-chairman, while Balsillie will stay on only as a director with no operational control of the company.
Who's who in the RIM shakeup: See next page
