Mr. Martin agrees the two ex-CEOs made mistakes, particularly in the U.S. market for smartphones, where Apple and Google-based products have stolen the BlackBerry’s thunder. And he concedes the board failed to push for more marketing muscle in anticipation of serious competition.
The BlackBerry had been the undisputed leader in handheld devices, and thus was able to sell itself in the period before strong alternatives emerged. “What would have been optimal is having the sales and marketing capability in place before that transition happened,” he admits.
He also says he was forever urging RIM to consider the importance of the browser experience on the BlackBerry, which was seen as less than stellar.
Mr. Lazaridis in particular was obsessed with his devices being efficient in their use of wireless networks, while more powerful smartphones coming on the market gobbled up huge chunks of bandwidth.
“People were saying we can’t make powerful phones like Apple. Yes, we can, but we couldn’t believe consumers would put up with that kind of battery inefficiency and that kind of network inefficiency.”
Still, he has little patience with calls to be more like Apple. He points out that Apple dismissed its own co-founder Steve Jobs in the mid-1980s in favour of an outside marketing specialist, only to bring Mr. Jobs back, laying the foundation for its current exalted status.
“They ask ‘Why can’t you be more like Apple?’ So we should go bankrupt and fire our founders and bring in a moron? That’s what we should do?” Mr. Martin says.
He is also dismissive of analysts who would scrap RIM’s integrated business model, getting out of hardware and licensing its software. That was the tack taken by successors to Apple’s Mr. Jobs, but when he returned to the fold, he reinstated the integrated platform.
“So that is what the geniuses who have all these clever thoughts about business models are saying – and a big piece of me just laughs: Have you no memory? Do you not even think?”
Before joining U of T, Mr. Martin, a Harvard MBA, spent 13 years as a management consultant. He still advises select companies, including long-time client Procter & Gamble Co. When his Rotman term ends in two years, he would consider staying on as a senior scholar or running a foundation, while continuing to write books and advise companies.
But RIM is top of mind now, and he insists the board did not present an ultimatum to the co-CEOs to resign – they made the decision on their own over the Christmas break.
But surely the slumping share price, despite a robust return on equity, advanced that decision? “You can think what you want to think. I think we are trying to manage the company as well as possible – and there’s a whole lot of reasons to take this next step.”
The product pipeline looked strong, a qualified successor was ready to take over and the two builders were tired of the “brutal” pace, he maintains. Mr. Balsillie told him the day after he resigned, he had his first good night’s sleep in about 20 years.
The tricky aspect, he says, was the former bosses deciding what they wanted to do. They decided to stay on as directors, while former banker Barbara Stymiest replaced them as board chair. Their continuing presence has raised concerns that Mr. Heins may not chart an independent course.
If Mr. Heins had wanted the two off the board, they might have left, but that was not the new CEO’s wish, Mr. Martin says. “And people just don’t understand the depth of understanding these guys have of their business, the connections, whatever.” Mr. Lazaridis, he says, “is a genius – so having him off the board would be a good idea?”
