RIM Makes New Chief Operating Officer And Chief Marketing Officer Official

Research in Motion (RIM) just announced two new hires to its executive leadership team, employing Kristian Tear as COO and Frank Boulben as CMO. This move is apart of new RIM boss Thorsten Heins’ massive restructuring of the company to get rid of some of the “fat on the hip,” as he called it. These hires are also apart of Heins’ operation ‘laser focus’.

Who is Kristian Tear and Frank Boulben, you ask? Well, Tear comes to RIM from Sony Mobile, where he most recently worked as executive VP, while Boulben is a former executive VP at the financially challenged company, LightSquared.

In the BlackBerry makers press release announcing the hires, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said that “Kristian and Frank bring extensive knowledge of the rapidly changing wireless global market and will help RIM as we sharpen our focus on delivering long-term value to our stakeholders.”

These hires should come as no surprise, as Heins before mentioned his interest in searching for a new COO and CMO soon. The problem with these hires is Heins believes Tear and Boulben “possess a keen understanding of the emerging trends in mobile communications and computing.” This is highly debatable.

Lets put these hires in better perspective. One man is from Sony Mobile, a manufacturing company that’s made virtually no noise in the mobile technology business, and the other guy is from a company on the brink of extinction, LightSquared. These two are going to bring RIM back to prominence?

T-Mobile USA's Chief Marketing Officer Calls It Quits

Maybe he's finished running with the underdog, or maybe he's just done with the corporate gig altogether, but one thing is certain: as of May 25th, Cole Brodman will mark his exit from T-Mobile. For the past two years, Mr. Brodman has served as the carrier's chief marketing officer, and his departure concludes 17 years with the company. During his tenure, Cole Brodman railed against the subsidized handset game, helped drive the adoption of smartphones and sadly crushed our dreams for the potential of a Magenta-branded iPhone. He must also claim at least partial responsibility for the carrier's net loss of customers in 2011, with a total of 802,000 subscribers jumping ship in Q4 alone.

One thing is certain of Mr. Brodman's exit, however: he seems content with the decision. Likening the move to a retirement, he remarked, "It's an opportunity to step away, get a break and start to think about how I want to do something next." Andrew Sherrard will replace Cole Brodman as T-Mobile's interim chief marketing officer while the company searches for a permanent replacement. So long, Mr. Brodman, and thanks for the smartphones.