First it was an open letter to RIM execs from a frustrated developer, then another open letter from a disgruntled shareholder… and now, yet another open letter from a high-level RIM employee to RIM Senior Management has surfaced online. BGR posted the very lengthy note that starts off by stating that “I have lost confidence”. This comes after weeks of their stock being pounded, poor earnings results and delayed products.
The apparent letter seems incredibly sincere, the writer wants “BlackBerry to once again be leading the pack”. It has some notable quotes, but it’s best to read letter in its entirety at BGR here. Leave your comments below on it and let us know what you think of it.
“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… unfortunately the culture at RIM does not allow us to speak openly without having to worry about the career-limiting effects.”
“We are in the middle of major “transition” and things have never been more chaotic. Almost every project is falling further and further behind schedule at a time when we absolutely must deliver great, solid products on time. We urge you to make bold decisions about our organisational structure, about our culture and most importantly our products.”
“We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice — the end user doesn’t care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren’t hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work.”
“We need some heavy hitters at RIM when it comes to software management. Teams still aren’t talking together properly, no one is making or can make critical decisions, all the while everyone is working crazy hours and still far behind. We are demotivated.”
“we simply must stop shipping incomplete products that aren’t ready for the end user. It is hurting our brand tremendously. It takes guts to not allow a product to launch that may be 90% ready with a quarter end in sight, but it will pay off in the long term.”
“We urgently need to invest like we never have before in becoming developer friendly. The return will be worth every cent. There is no polite way to say this, but it’s true — BlackBerry smartphone apps suck. Even PlayBook, with all its glorious power, looks like a Fisher Price toy with its Adobe AIR/Flash apps. Developing for BlackBerry is painful… The solution? Recruit serious talent, buy SDK/API specialist companies, throw a truckload of money at it… Let’s do whatever it takes, and quickly!”
“BlackBerry Messenger has been our standout, yet we wasted our marketing on strange stories from a barber shop to a horse wrangler. I promise you, this did nothing to help us in the mind of the average consumer.”
“Where is the guy responsible for the 9530 software? Still with us, still running some important software initiative. We will never achieve excellence with this culture. Just because someone may have been a loyal RIM employee for 7 years, it doesn’t mean they are the best Manager / Director / VP for that role. It’s time to change the culture to deliver or move on and get out”
“Now would be a great time to internally re-brand and re-energize the workplace. For example, rename the company to just “BlackBerry” to signify our new focus on one QNX product line.”
Source: BGR
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