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 …

There’s eWeek’s list of 10 things Heins should do, and a separate Top 10 to-do items from CNET. Mashable’s list had only four items, and Fierce Wireless boiled it down to three. TechCrunch, meanwhile, offered up a list of things that Heins should not do, which was basically the opposite of many of the recommendations on the other to-do lists.

Personally, I have too many things on my own to-do list to have time to make one for Heins.

But I would just offer up a few facts to a man who believes, or at least publicly states, that no radical change is needed at RIM.

The BlackBerry maker has lost three points of market share in just the past three months.

As recently as 2009, RIM accounted for 54 percent of smartphone shipments in North America. By mid-2011, analysts said its share of this market had dropped to just 13 percent.

Oh, yeah — and the stock. As a longtime RIM executive, I doubt Heins needs reminding of the share price. But just to be sure, I took a screenshot of the chart shown on RIM’s investor Web site. It shows a stock that was above $60 a year ago, and is now barely above $15 a share.

That’s the takeaway from new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, who told analysts this morning that he thinks the company is in pretty good shape, all things considered. Sure, in the U.S., it has been roughed up by Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, but it’s still used by lots of people, has lots of fans in big companies and big government agencies, and lots of users around the world.

And the new tech that the company has in the pipeline — a revised version of its PlayBook tablet, and a new operating system due out in the fall — are great. You’ll see: “I don’t think there is a drastic change needed.”

No surprise there, given that Heins, RIM’s former chief operating officer, has been at the company for the past four years. If RIM really wanted someone to blow things up and start over again, they’d bring in an outsider.

Instead, the only external help Heins seems to think he’ll need will be the talents of a new marketing guru, whom he is counting on to reach out to consumers, in particular. But if RIM can’t make a better product than its competitors — or, at the very minimum, one that’s at least as good — I don’t see how messaging will help.

EARLIER

Time for a change. But not too much change!

That’s the messaging around Research In Motion’s CEO swap. The company has yielded to irate investors by moving out longtime co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. But they’ve moved up an insider — former Chief Operating Officer Thorsten Heins — into the top spot. And if you listen to him, RIM is doing great.

Here’s the “meet the new boss” video that the company put out last night, where Heins says that “sometimes we innovate too much.” And that he likes to ski, but that the hills around RIM HQ in Waterloo, Ontario, don’t really compare to the Bavarian mountains in his native Germany:

Wall Street doesn’t seem overly impressed with the move, or the suggestion from a Wall Street Journal source that the company refuses to consider a sale, and RIMM shares are down 3 percent in pre-market trading. [Correction: RIMM shares are up 3 percent in pre-market trading.]

Now we’ll see if Heins can help make his case in person: He is hosting his first conference call, and we’ll cover it live here, starting at 8 am ET.

8:02 am: Greetings. Apologies in advance, because our nifty liveblog tool seems to be MIA this AM, so things will be a little slower than usual here.

RIM official sets expectations: No financial guidance here. Just Heins and new BOD chair Barbara Stymiest.

Stymiest: Thanks much to Mike and Jim for building RIM. “It is, still today, one of the leading brands in the world.”

Stymiest: Runs through Heins’s resume, heaps praise on him. “The board is very excited about RIM’s prospects for the future.”

Heins: Thanks! RIM isn’t “just a device company,” it’s an integrated service company, with devices and networks. Unique opportunity. “We have an exceptional foundation to build upon.”

“RIM has undergone, and is still completing, a major transformation.” Sure, has “hit a few bumps along the road here and there,” but that happens. Purchasing QNX to create new platform for company was a bold move, and we’ll see that it was the right decision over time. PlayBook 2.0 will be great. So will BlackBerry 10.

Q&A:

Q: Please go into detail: What are your priorities for the next 100 days?

Heins: We need to get better at market communications. We have strong tech, strong customer base, growing overseas. “The U.S. is a bit different.” Public opinion there is that we’re still strong in enterprise, but we need to be better about explaining ourselves as a consumer company. “We need to engage more with the consumer base … we need to take them with us on the journey of exploring BlackBerry in the future.” Also, we need to execute better. We have to scale processes further, need to have “rigid” management for product development, etc. Gotta understand RIM has grown very quickly. But “we innovated while we were defining the product,” and “that needs to stop” — need to have “way better execution.” “I’m pretty sure this will really help us a lot, and really help our customer base a lot.”

Q: Seems like lots of your success has been in the “low-end market” in Asia. Thoughts on that? Also, thoughts on getting BlackBerry 10 out next fall as planned?

Heins: You say “low end”, I say “entry level.” We can’t make phones with less power. But there’s a big market that is still using feature/“dumb” phones, and we can move them to smartphones. They won’t go to the most powerful phones right away. We need to give them a good landing point. Once we prove to them that BlackBerry is a great place to start, we’ll move them up the ladder. “That’s the strategy behind the ‘BlackBerry for Everyone’ strategy.” As far as BlackBerry 10 — it’s not just a new OS, it’s a whole new infrastructure. Need to be clear about that. “That work is underway.” By the way, we’re also going to have an Android player with PlayBook 2.0, so we can leverage the “long tail” of all those apps, if people want those.

Q: Last year, you also were bullish about QNX. Why are you still confident about that? That seems like a “me-too OS, that is just catching up” to Android, iOS.

Heins: Again, QNX is an existing OS. Used on power grids. “It is a proven OS.” Allows true multitasking — “I mean, true multitasking.” “It is an extremely competitive OS as of today.” Very smart of Lazaridis to buy this instead of trying to build our own.

Q: On last RIM call, you guys talked about strategic options the company was looking at. Those options still available?

Heins: You mean licensing? Let me be clear: We can’t just be in the device-only business. “We are strong because we have an integrated solution … I want to build on that. I will not in any way split this up.” As far as inbound licensing requests, I’ll listen to them, and if they make sense, but “it’s not my Focus One.” Apple, “the other fruit company,” only other company with this kind of integration, and I want to take advantage of that strength that we have, too.

[Missed Q, but Heins is now talking about marketing, which he says needs to get better, specifically with consumer marketing.]

Q: You’ve been here four years. What can you do now as CEO that you couldn’t do as COO?

Heins: We were still kind of a start-up when I came on. But “start-up processes don’t scale.” So we need to change that. I’ve been able to study how the culture works. “I don’t think there is a drastic change needed”; we are “evolving.” “I don’t feel I was held back in any way to do what we needed to do.” But we do need to get better about “processes.” Again, I do want us to focus more on consumer marketing.

That was a fast call, and now it’s over.

RIM confirmed late Sunday that it has installed former co-chief operating officer Thorsten Heins as its new CEO. Board member Barbara Stymiest will take over the board chair position, with former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis assuming the role of vice chairman, and his counterpart, Jim Balsillie, remaining on the board as a director. Stymiest had been expected to assume the board chair spot.

However, by appointing both a current executive as CEO and an existing board member as its new chair, it is unclear if the market will see the shake-up as sufficient. In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, both Balsillie and Lazaridis said the decision to step down was theirs and not made in response to investor calls for their removal.

In making the move, Lazaridis said he hoped the executive changes would “return the public’s focus to what is most important,” that being the company, its brand and its products.

Balsillie offered a similar sentiment.

“I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company,” he said in a statement. “I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support.”

The BlackBerry maker has seen its shares tumble in recent months, as the company has been late with new versions of its products, and failed to make a dent in the tablet market with its PlayBook.

Despite missing both product deadlines and financial targets, Balsillie and Lazaridis had resisted those who had called for their ouster.

Heins characterized these major stumbles as “growing pains.”

“As with any company that has grown as fast as we have, there have been inevitable growing pains,” he said in a statement. “We have learned from those challenges and, I believe, we have and will become a stronger company as a result.”

For those who have never heard of Heins, he is a former Siemens executive who spent 23 years at the German electronics firm before joining RIM in 2007.

In addition to naming Stymiest as chairman, RIM also added an eleventh member to its board, Fairfax Financial Holdings CEO Prem Watsa.

News of the executive shuffle was reported earlier on Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this week, we noted speculation that RIM might be talking to Samsung about a licensing deal for its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 OS. Now here’s yet another theory to consider, this one perhaps a bit wilder than those we’ve heard to date: What if RIM were to simply hand over its BlackBerry business to Samsung in return for royalties?

Avian Research’s Matthew Thornton feels it’s a possibility. “A potential and interesting development would be if RIM were to shutter or de-emphasize its own device platform,” Thornton explains. “[By doing this it could] dramatically cut costs, focus on its network and enterprise services and the BlackBerry 10 platform/ecosystem, and allow Samsung to be the de facto device manufacturer for BlackBerry devices (perhaps co-branded) with Samsung paying RIM a licensing fee similar to what it does with Microsoft.”

Thornton’s theory sounds like a bit of a stretch, but it does have some compelling aspects.

RIM is clearly struggling to compete in today’s smartphone market, but its secure messaging platform, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), is still among the best around.

Why not hand off the BlackBerry hardware business to a company that’s responsible for some of the best and most popular Android smartphones? Then the company can double down on BBM and other enterprise services that it actually does well.

Some are thrown away. Others are forgotten. Still others are passed on to children and become iPods. But many find a new life with a new owner. Turns out that the secondary market for the iPhone is nearly as robust as the primary market. And it’s growing steadily larger and more important for Apple’s carrier partners, and for Apple itself.

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) recently surveyed the secondary iPhone market in the U.S. and found it to be thriving. Since the Oct. 14, 2011, debut of the iPhone 4S, 53 percent of new iPhone buyers have introduced their old phone into the secondary market. Of those, 49 percent were iPhones, 21 percent were BlackBerrys and 15 percent were Android devices.

Why does the secondary market skew so heavily toward the iPhone?

“We think the secondary market for the iPhone is more established, since iPhone has the longest track record for a single device/platform, and for many it is the aspirational entry-point smartphone,” CIRP co-founder Mike Levin told AllThingsD. “IPhones also had the advantage of having a useful second life as iPod touch substitutes, which made their used value a little clearer from the start. As a GSM phone, AT&T iPhones also could be [unlocked] for use on other GSM networks, so there was an early secondary market for iPhones on other carriers — though this was, of course, limited to more savvy and aggressive technology consumers.”

Now here’s where things get interesting: Among consumers who gave their old iPhone to someone else, 87 percent expected the recipient to activate it on a wireless carrier. Extrapolating from that, CIRP estimates that 11 percent of iPhone activations since the launch of the iPhone 4S, on Oct. 14, 2011, have been used iPhones.

That’s a significant number for a few reasons: It explains the discrepancy we sometimes see between carrier activation numbers and iPhone sales. And it allows CIRP to put a value on secondary market iPhone activations — activations for which AT&T and Verizon, the two carriers with the most legacy iPhones on their networks — aren’t subsidizing hardware.

The research firm believes that, for every used iPhone that carriers activate, they save around $400. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, CIRP figures that secondary-market activations saved AT&T and Verizon between $400 million and $800 million in subsidy costs.

So a thriving secondary market for iPhones, or any smartphone for that matter, is good news for the carriers.

But what about Apple? Every iPhone purchased on the secondary market is one that’s not bought at full retail price from Apple or one of its partners. There’s got to be some harm there, even if it’s only minor.

“We think the secondary market is both detrimental and beneficial to Apple,” said Levin. “It hurts Apple because it creates competition for new iPhones, which we see in the relatively modest sales of reduced-price iPhone 4 and free iPhone 3G units. But it also benefits the company because used iPhone customers aspire to own the newest and best iPhone, so they are likely future new phone customers. In fact, they are likely new entrants to the Apple ecosystem, who otherwise would not have found a way in.”

And every new entrant to the Apple ecosystem is another potential customer for the company’s iTunes Store. That, too, is good news for Apple, and for app developers and content creators.

“Secondary-market iPhone owners are new content and app consumers,” said Levin. “We don’t know if these customers have the same budget for content compared to new iPhone customers, but reactivated iPhones will more likely consume content and download apps than forgotten old phones left in drawers.”

In other words, the secondary iPhone market is doing far more good than bad for the broader ecosystem.

“It makes me think of an analogy from the used-car market: It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad, either,” said Levin. “In the early days, used cars cannibalized new-car sales, but now they create brand loyalty in customers that can’t afford new cars, and they create a new revenue stream in repairs and accessories for the original manufacturer.”

(By the way, before we get there: I didn’t watch “SNL” last night, and no one in my Twitter stream seems to have been interested, either. But the reason I’ve seen these is because I got an email this morning from “social media agency” New Media Strategies, which NBC is using to promote yesterday’s show. I believe I’ve noted this before, but we’ve come an awful long way from NBC’s befuddlement over “Lazy Sunday” showing up on YouTube. Then again, it’s been six (!) years.)

A reminder that typing and texting is dangerous/funny:

And a weird one that mocks the Internet audience that it hopes will end up watching and talking about this. “I have no shame or self-awareness”:

But will it do RIM any good?

PlayBook OS 2.0 includes the native email and calendar programs that were inexplicably missing from its first generation, as well an Android app player. In other words, it’s the operating system that RIM should have launched with.

That said, it’s still lacking in a few areas. Specifically, PlayBook OS 2.0 doesn’t offer native support for BlackBerry Messenger, which is a glaring omission, though RIM is scrambling to address it.

So is this update enough to raise the PlayBook’s chances of mainstream success?

That’s a tough one. The competitive landscape for tablets is only growing stronger. The Kindle Fire seems to be picking up momentum, and March should bring with it the launch of a new iPad, which will undoubtedly present rivals with new challenges.

Even with a successful OS upgrade, RIM has a difficult road ahead of it. And already the calls of “too little, too late” have begun.

“We were impressed with new BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 features such as Android Player and fully integrated email, calendar, contacts, and social media feeds,” says Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley. “However, we believe OS 2.0 only narrows the gap with leading ecosystems iOS and Android. As a result, we believe sales of the improved Playbook could continue to struggle versus improving Android and iOS tablet offerings along with new entrants such as Amazon’s Fire and Windows 8 tablets later this year.”

So just what is he going to do?

Well, some of the details are still being worked out. But Humm said a big part will be continuing with the “value plans” that the company introduced last year. Those plans, which offer lower monthly rates to those who forego a device subsidy, can indeed save many customers money, but they are also complicated to make sense of.

“I think it’s more complicated because it means you separate out the handset from the rate plan,” Humm said. “On the other hand, it is more honest. It is a way for customers to optimize based on what they need.”

Humm notes that some customers want a big data plan but don’t need the latest smartphone, while others want the latest phone but not a lot of data. T-Mobile’s value plans ensure neither will overpay.

T-Mobile also intends to stick with plans that slow users down after they hit the amount of data they have paid for, rather than implementing an overage charge.

“What customers hate is when they are using data and suddenly they are being cut off or they have to pay gigantic overages,” Humm said. “Our model doesn’t do that. You stay connected and you don’t have to pay more.”

And while other carriers struggle to figure out a way to allow customers to share gigabytes across multiple devices, Humm said T-Mobile is sticking with an approach that allows customers to add a discounted second rate plan.

When it comes to getting the latest devices, Humm insists that isn’t a problem despite his No. 4 market position and the fact that the company uses a rather unique wireless band.

Of course, there is one big exception: The iPhone.

All of the other major U.S. carriers — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint — now carry the Apple device, leaving Humm odd man out.

He isn’t giving up hope, though.

“The key reason we didn’t have the iPhone in the past is we are on different band than globally the market was,” Humm said. “That is something which will change over time. Chipsets are also evolving to be able to allow for more bands.”

As always, though, the decision is up to Apple, Humm acknowledges.

On the marketing front, Humm said that T-Mobile will probably resume the approach it had been taking prior to the AT&T deal, in which it sharply attacked its rivals and pitched itself as a more consumer-friendly alternative.

“We will pick up our challenger strategy the way we had presented it last year and sharpen it further,” he said.

Long-term, the company still has to figure out what it is going to do about a next-generation network. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have all either launched an LTE network or plan to do so this year.

Because of spectrum limitations, T-Mobile has focused instead on speeding up its existing HSPA+ network, which it also bills as “4G.” For now, Humm insists that is good enough, saying customers care more about reliability and speed than they do network technology.

The real benefit of LTE, Humm said, is on easing network congestion, and he notes that isn’t a problem T-Mobile currently is struggling with.

“LTE has the advantage on the long haul; it is more effective spectrum ultilization,” Humm said. “That’s only something which will help (over) the long haul. You are talking about maybe in three, four, five years.”

LTE is still the long-term plan, Humm said, adding that he thinks the company will find a way to get the spectrum it needs.

“We’re not against LTE,” Humm said. “We will over time evolve to LTE. We just don’t see a need to move there very fast.”

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

The company kicked off 2012 by announcing six new Android devices, all running on LTE, as well as new LTE-capable Windows phones from HTC and Nokia.

Moments after he left the stage, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega sat down with AllThingsD to talk about a wide range of issues facing his company, various mobile device makers and the industry as a whole.

Here’s an edited look at what he had to say.

On the failure of the T-Mobile deal and where AT&T goes from here:

We’re very pleased that the FCC approved our purchase of the Qualcomm spectrum. We’ll be working to put that into play as quickly as possible. And we are always going to be on the lookout for new spectrum that comes on the market. We hope that the FCC also makes more spectrum available.

We’ve put that behind us and we are moving on to have a great 2012.

On BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, which was notably missing from AT&T’s announcement on Monday:

BlackBerry has got some interesting things coming up. I’m encouraged by some of the things that I understand they are bringing to market.

BlackBerry has been a great partner and, you know, people love their devices. They love the keyboards. I think they are working on all of the things customers want. I am very pleased with, at least, the things that are on their roadmap. As soon as they can get them I think they are going to have a lot of customers knocking on their door.

On Motorola, which was also absent from AT&T’s Vegas announcements:

They are going to have some exciting stuff. They are just not ready to announce them with us. It’s really early in the year.

On Sony’s future in the smartphone market:

As you know, they bought out the Ericsson interest. I think they are going to have a more focused approach and put what I call more “Sony-ness” into their smartphones. We’ve met with their team and I am very encouraged.

On whether AT&T will offer fewer tablets this year after so many iPad rivals failed to make a dent in the market:

I think you are going to see us find models that have a particular differentiated approach to the tablet market. Obviously Apple sets the bar with the iPad, so Pantech is now looking at a very low-end device, still a great device, but I think that kind of distinction is what customers want.

On why the 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note might stand a chance:

That’s the first hybrid device that tries to fill in a niche between a tablet and a smartphone. I’ve been using that device and it is, surprisingly, an amazing device. I didn’t understand whether we were going to be able to make that transition work, but you ought to try it. I think you will get hooked on it.

I think it is for somebody that wants to make it their primary device and doesn’t want to carry around a tablet as well. It’s surprisingly thin. It fits in your pocket.

That’s an iconic device. It’s exclusive to us. We’re going to put a lot of marketing effort behind it.

On whether we will see LTE phones that work across multiple carriers even though the first devices don’t support that.

The first ones are done that way because of technology limitations. How many antennas can you squeeze into one of those things? It’s the first generation. As the technology matures, you will incorporate more bands into the devices. I think you will have as many bands as customers are going to want. It’s not inexpensive, but I think technology will allow us to do that at a reasonable price.

Sources close to the company say that co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie will soon relinquish their titles as co-chairmen of the board, officially ceding that position to board member and Royal Bank of Canada exec Barbara Stymiest.

“Stymiest is a lock for chairwoman,” one source told AllThingsD. “The only thing that’s unclear right now is the timeline for her appointment.”

A second source confirmed the likelihood of Stymiest’s appointment, but cautioned that a final decision hadn’t yet been made.

Earlier this week the Financial Post reported that RIM’s board was leaning toward tapping Stymiest as chairwoman. So evidently things are moving apace up in Waterloo, and it’s only a matter of time until RIM begins the executive overhaul it hopes will keep it relevant.

But at this point, is removing the co-CEOs from their shared board chair duties enough?

RIM’s share price ended 2011 near a seven-year low; the precipitous tumble that took it there trimmed $27 billion from its market cap. That’s $7 billion more than Nokia is worth right now.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek says Stymiest’s appointment could help, but not for a while: “We would view such an announcement positively as we believe she will initiate a formal strategic review, possibly trim costs in the hardware business, and possibly announce additional partnerships; however, we continue to see an outright sale in the near-term as unlikely and see near-term results as challenged.”

But RIM’s gruesome downward spiral was caused by a string of foolish missteps and disappointments that will not be easily reversed, particularly not with a simple board chair swap. While Stymiest’s background is impressive — executive positions at the Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto Stock Exchange parent TMX — it is largely financial. She seems to have little background in consumer electronics. Presumably, some experience in that area would be helpful.

More helpful still would be a chair who hasn’t been so steadfastly supportive of Lazaridis and Balsillie, who seem to be engineering RIM’s decline just as deftly as they once engineered its ascension to dominance in the smartphone market. Their inexplicable optimism in the face of near-catastrophic screwups; their early indifference to the iPhone and similar devices that would ultimately undermine their business; and their bizarre mutual egocentrism in the face of product delays, successive quarterly earnings slips and declining smartphone market share — getting past all of that will require some serious readjustment at the company. Is Stymiest the person to provide that? And if she is, why hasn’t she done so already?

Recall Lazaridis’s remarks during a June earnings call, remarks made while investors gutted the company’s stock in reaction to a truly crappy quarter:

“Jim and I have the perfect balance to make the hard decisions. This is fun. … We’re changing the world. We’re transforming the way people work. … We birthed a tablet in a year! … We transitioned to a new operating system!”

As I wrote at the time, “The only thing more tiring — and frustrating — than listening to the company’s repeated ‘just you wait, our new device is a quantum leap over anything that’s out there’ promises is hearing the two guys who make and then break them congratulate each another on what a fantastic job they’re doing navigating a transition they didn’t have the foresight to prepare for — or see.”

In the end, for RIM to reverse its downward trajectory, there must be more than a simple board change.

“There’s a bigger problem than the market share erosion and product delays,” said one analyst, who declined to speak on record. “It’s Mike and Jim.”

Reached for comment, RIM offered the following:

“As previously disclosed, RIM’s Board has established a Committee of independent directors with the mandate to study the Company’s governance structure and report their findings by January 31, 2012. The Committee is on track to meet this schedule and the Board will then publicly respond to the recommendations of the Committee within 30 days.”

And it’s going to show it off next week at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

Late Thursday, RIM distributed invitations to “an intimate event” to be held at CES on January 10. Emceed by Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP of developer relations, and Martyn Mallick, VP of global alliances, the event touts the BlackBerry as “the best app platform in the industry today,” and promises to prove it with a demonstration of PlayBook OS 2.0 and BlackBerry 7 OS.

Evidently, RIM has made some remarkable improvements to both operating systems, as well as its straggling app ecosystem. If it hasn’t, it’s never going to hear the end of that “best app platform” claim.

That said, the long-awaited addition of the native email, calendar and contact apps that the device debuted without should go a long way to silencing at least a few of the complaints that have plagued it.

RIM is expected to release PlayBook OS 2.0 to consumers sometime in February, the same month it reportedly plans to debut BlackBerry OS 10 at Mobile World Congress.

Two of the 25 TechZones on the showroom floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center will be geared specifically toward digital health, with more than 171 exhibitors showcasing products as part of the Digital Health and Fitness category.

Basis B1 Band

One notable device attendees will see is the Basis B1 band, which offers an alternative to accelerometer-based fitness products. The band is a water-resistant wristband that uses multiple sensors to calculate calories burned, amount of physical activity and sleep patterns. It also sports Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensors that track perspiration to measure body temperature alongside ambient temperature.

In addition to showing off the B1 band at CES, Basis CEO Jef Holove said the company plans to demo a Web dashboard that works with the USB-compatible band to help users track the activity data they upload.

The cost of the Basis B1 band, which is expected to launch in early 2012, is still to be determined.

Another company, called Striiv, will showcase a $99 keychain-friendly device meant to track a user’s every movement; the idea is to motivate individuals by using activity-based games and creating challenges based on real-world distances, like crossing the Grand Canyon. The Striiv device hit the market this past October.

Among the other health-related products to be featured at the CES 2012 Sports and Fitness TechZone are waterproof MP3 players, armbands, heart monitors, high-tech goggles, GPS-enabled cameras and the integration of gesture-recognition technology into games for fitness and sports.

According to a recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the organization that runs CES, the sports and fitness category is a $70 billion annual business in the U.S. alone.

The growing mobile phone market and explosion of mobile apps has contributed to the growth of the digital health market as well. A recent ABI Research report says the market for sports and fitness apps is expected to reach $400 million by 2016, across more than one billion annual health-related app downloads.

Health care companies have also been getting into the app arena. United Health Group plans to show off mobile applications at CES 2012 for managing health care accounts, tracking prescriptions and creating health goals. Aetna already has mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry; Blue Cross and Blue Shield introduced an app for iOS devices earlier this year.

The development of these mobile apps, as well as lightweight wearable devices such as the popular FitBit, opens up a new category of products that are less expensive — and in some cases less cumbersome — than a traditional, bulky fitness watch or a heart-rate monitor that straps around the chest. In many cases, new fitness products come with analytical Web services, and aim to go beyond the standard pedometer or accelerometer to offer a comprehensive look at activity and health.

But the marriage of health and fitness data applications with actual hardware can be a difficult one in terms of product development. Case in point: The Jawbone UP wristband.

Jawbone UP

Jawbone, a maker of slick audio products, recently made its first foray into the fitness market with the $99 dollar Jawbone UP. A few weeks after the launch of the UP, which tracks user activity and plugs directly into the iPhone to sync the data, user complaints began to trickle in. Some cited battery issues, syncing problems and poor design. The company put out an apology, instituted a no-questions-asked return policy and has temporarily halted production of the device.

Jawbone declined to comment on when the company will resume production of the UP device, but Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s Vice President of Product Management & Strategy, issued a statement saying, “The passionate response to UP has been phenomenal — and this is just the beginning. We’re extremely committed to the category and we’re going to keep improving the UP product until we realize the powerful vision of what this category can be.”

Basis’s Holove concurred that fitness devices that look to eliminate straps and wires while still performing multiple tasks can be complicated products, and said part of the reason the Basis band isn’t officially launching at CES is because the company is focused on “getting it right.”

“We don’t want to repeat any lessons learned in the industry recently. We’ve redoubled our testing plans now,” Holove said.

Holove says he believes the initial excitement over the Jawbone UP is evidence of growing consumer demand for wearable health-and-fitness devices. He also predicts that, in the near future, more corporations will begin to institute health-incentive programs, like Virgin’s HealthMiles, which could involve the mass distribution of health monitors. Through Virgin HealthMiles’s Pay-For-Prevention program, companies encourage employees to use a GoZone tracker and record their daily activities for potential rewards.

But for now, Holove says, the focus is still on marketing directly to the consumer when it comes to fitness and health. ”It’s no mystery that we need to be healthier. Health care costs are rising while health is declining, so we’re going directly to the customer and saying, here’s what you can do about that.”

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
• HP’s Former CTO: Ultrabooks Are Nothing New, webOS Still Has Life Yet
• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
• Kinect Helps Keep Aging Xbox at the Top of Its Game
• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
• Belkin Bringing Mobile TV to Lots of Cellphones, Will Anyone Tune In?
• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
• RIM Hopes Next PlayBook OS Will Impress at CES
• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Microsoft Pulling Out of CES After Upcoming Show
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

For the three-month period ending in November, RIM’s share of U.S. smartphone subscribers fell to 16.6 percent from 19.7 percent. That’s a 3.1 point change from August, and another nasty decline for RIM, which continues to struggle against subscriber losses in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the BlackBerry-maker’s misfortune continues to be its rivals’ gain. For the same period, iOS’s market share rose 1.4 percentage points to 28.7 percent, and Android’s to 46.9 percent from 43.8 percent.

RIM shares hit a series of multiyear lows after warning on Dec. 15 its new BlackBerry won’t be out until later next year. Its current line isn’t selling well in the U.S., as Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other competitors gobble up market share.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Groklaw reported the notifications on Friday. See the full filing here. These patent reexaminations are a routine part of patent lawsuits. One party, usually the one that’s alleged to be infringing, asks the patent office to reexamine the patent and decide whether or not the patent should have been issued in the first place. A rejection isn’t by any means a final nail in the coffin in Oracle’s infringement case against Google. But it doesn’t exactly help Oracle, either.

Oracle has six months to appeal the patent office’s finding, and it can also, as a final step, sue the patent office itself. But these things rarely go that far.

And these rejections are sometimes meaningless to the final outcome of a lawsuit. In 2005, as part of its epic patent litigation against NTP — the case that nearly barred the import of BlackBerry devices into the United States — Research In Motion won several rejections from the patent office, like this one, which I wrote about at the time, only to suffer later defeats in court that led it to pay a $612 million settlement.

Oracle has claimed that Google owes it more than $6 billion for parts of its Java software that were used in the Android mobile operating system; Oracle took over Java after it acquired Sun Microsystems last year. Google has argued that Oracle’s claims for damages are flawed. After face-to-face talks between Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page failed in September, the trial had been expected to begin in October. But it was delayed, and is now expected to get underway in 2012.