RIM, the parent company of the iconic Blackberry, is going through a tough time right now. Shares are down. Executives are bolting and not only has one shareholder called for RIM’s co-CEO’s to reshuffle duties, but Blackberry’s 6th largest major shareholder has publicly stated that they’re bolting as well. On top of that, you know how they say when it rains it pours? Well, RIM better invest in some heavy duty umbrellas, because if this BGR report is true, Blackberry is about to get soaked.
According to the report, RIM has taken a page out of The Godfather’s handbook and has been strong-arming cellular carriers to accept their products. Even when the product isn’t quite ready for primetime. Maybe that will explain why the Blackberry Storm was so buggy when it was first launched, that it became a craptastic cluster f*** for RIM.
Here’s what’s supposed to happen, when an OS(ie- Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc…) build has been put through its paces and performs well enough for its makers, it moves to the carriers for testing. Now if it doesn’t test well for the carriers, it gets rejected. If its rejected, it goes back to its makers for more testing and retooling. This can delay a handset from reaching consumers by months. This is no bueno for the OEM’s and the owners of the OS’s bottom line. What RIM is being accused of, is forcing these half baked products down the carriers metaphorical throats, by putting pressure on carriers to accept these products “as is”. It’s also being accused of forcing its own engineers of rushing these half baked products through what’s called the Technical Acceptance phase, so they can be rushed to carriers.
Now why would RIM do this? Speculation is that RIM is trying to force carriers to accept its newest handset, the Blackberry Bold Touch 9900. This handset, and a few rumored others, are supposed to hold RIM over until it switches from its proprietary Blackberry OS, to its new QNX OS, which is supposed to be better geared towards battling Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. Incidentally, Blackberry’s QNX OS can be found on the recently launched Blackberry Playbook. But the new OS isn’t going to be ready until sometime in 2012. So RIM does indeed need to get the Bold Touch handsets to the market quickly to help keep it afloat until QNX is ready. And what faster way to get your handset into the hands of consumers than by cutting corners and forcing carriers to rush half baked products to the market.
Now, bear in mind that even though this is coming from a trusted source of BGR’s, and there is some evidence that points to it(buggy Blackberry’s, constantly rebooting, signal and connection issues), without any concrete “black and white” proof, or comments from RIM or any carriers, this must, for now, fall into the “allegedly” category. But if this turns out to be be rock- solid proof true, RIM is in for some stormy days indeed.