For RIM, you are what you eat. The latest twist for tumbling company Research in Motion, they’ve chosen to change their name and branding to reflect who they really are. Instead of being the once-proud RIM brand, they will be known simply as “BlackBerry” going forward.
This is a good move. It focuses all attention on the one thing that has a chance of keeping everyone in the company employed: a successful BlackBerry 10 launch. This is their last chance. If they cannot recapture some of the market that they’ve been hemorrhaging for a while, particularly in the business sector, than they will not be a company by sometime in 2014. It’s that simple.
CEO Thorsten Heins announced the decision at a BlackBerry 10 launch event today and followed it p with the video below, noting that this includes actual change to go along with the symbolic change.. It’s bold moves like this that can save the company (if that’s still possible). We’ve been very critical of RIM for a while. This is the first sign of hope that we’ve seen.
