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?

RIM Chose QNX Over Android

Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins today said that the company realized 1.5 years ago that its legacy platform would not work moving forward. It believed that its BlackBerry 5, 6, and 7 platforms had reached the pinnacle and limits of their capabilities. RIM assessed that a rewrite of BB7 wouldn't work, so it chose to completely reboot its platform strategy. While Heins didn't name Google's Android platform specifically, he alluded to the fact several times that if RIM had chosen "one of the open platforms" available in the market it would have left RIM with little ability to differentiate itself from other hardware makers. Heins viewed that idea as a compromise of the company's value proposition, which is to offer an integrated platform and hardware business. It then searched for an operating system and eventually settled on QNX, which is the basis for its PlayBook OS and future BlackBerry 10 OS. The company expects to debut the new OS later this year.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins Says LTE PlayBook Is Coming

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins made it clear at BlackBerry World that the LTE PlayBook tablet is coming later this year. This announcement is no surprise, yet it is confirmation of what we knew was coming. A BlackBerry PlayBook rocking 4G connectivity has been spied at FCC in the past hinting it was close to coming to market.

With confirmation that the tablet is on its way, we still don’t know a firm launch date. Heins would only say, “later this year.” The bigger question now is with every other version of the PlayBook having failed at anything resembling a normal price, why does RIM think a 4G LTE version will do well?

RIM apparently believes that BlackBerry 10 will solve some of the problems the tablet had. The company is reportedly happy with the hardware, and the software seems to be lacking point. Would a PlayBook tablet with 4G LTE support BlackBerry 10 interest you? I think unless the tablet was very cheap most people will still opt for the iPad.

RIM Announces Organization Changes Within BlackBerry

As RIM rolls out Q4 2012 financial earnings, they've also gone ahead an announced some recent changes within the organization and ultimately their Board of Directors:

"As I complete my retirement from RIM, I'm grateful for this remarkable experience and for the opportunity to have worked with outstanding professionals who helped turn a Canadian idea into a global success," said Jim Balsillie.

"On behalf of the Board and everyone at RIM, I would like to thank Jim for his 20 years of service to RIM," said Barb Stymiest, Chair of RIM's Board of Directors. "His energy, drive and enthusiasm helped build one of the most successful technology companies of our time."

In addition, David Yach will be retiring from his role as CTO, Software after 13 years with the Company and after 4 years with the company and following an open dialogue on the future of global operations, Jim Rowan, COO, Global Operations, has decided to pursue other interests. The Company is currently undertaking a search to hire a single COO with responsibilities to run the Company's operations.

"RIM would like to thank David Yach and Jim Rowan for their years of service and many contributions to RIM," said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO. "We wish them well in their future pursuits."