John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Heins: I’m Here to Help RIM Catch Up

Thorsten Heins, Research In Motion’s new CEO, hasn’t won much of an endorsement from shareholders his first week on the job. The company’s stock slid nearly 7 percent following his appointment, as investors reacted with disappointment to his insistence that RIM is on the right track.

That commitment to the current strategic direction of the company, that complacency, suggested to many that Heins — just like his predecessors — hasn’t fully recognized the dramatic loss of traction RIM has suffered in the market it once dominated. Add to this the fact that he served as RIM’s COO during a time when the company made a number of operational missteps, and Heins really didn’t inspire much confidence. Meet the new boss, same as the old bosses, right?

Maybe. But perhaps Heins isn’t quite as oblivious as former RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. In a Thursday chat with CNBC, he sounded a bit more realistic about RIM’s plight, acknowledging its missteps and conceding that the company has suffered as a result of them.

“It hurts me to see us losing market share in the U.S.,” Heins said. “There was a paradigm shift, and we did not shift with it. I know we’ve made mistakes, and I know I’m in for a fight. We want to stop the bleeding.”

Sounds far more encouraging than his spiel in that abysmal “meet the new boss” video RIM posted earlier this week, right? Certainly, it’s more honest. And admission is the first step in recovery …

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”