CEOs of RIM Step Down
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 24 January 2012, 01:01 IST   |    1 Comments
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CEOs of RIM Step Down
Bangalore: Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, founder and CEOs of Canadian telecom company Research In Motion resigned to pave new ways to bring in a change to BlackBerry phone-maker. Lazaridis said in a statement, "There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership." He further added, "entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond." Lazaridis will continue to serve the company as a Vice Chairman on board and offer strategies to promote the BlackBerry brand globally. Whereas, Balsille will still act as a member of Board of directors and he said, "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." Thorsten Heins is likely to become the new President and Chief executive Officer; he came aboard in 2007 from the industrial conglomerate Siemens AG. Heins is confident enough regarding RIMs move and made a statement, "We have a strong balance sheet with approximately $1.5 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt," he noted. "We reported revenue of $5.2 billion in our last quarter, up 24 percent from the prior quarter, and a 35-percent year-to-year increase in the BlackBerry subscriber base, which is now over 75 million." The market shares for Blackberry has declined during three months ending in November, while Apple and Google's Android has made profits, according to comScore. The Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM saw its share of U.S. smartphone subscribers fall to 16.6 percent at the end of November from 19.7 percent at the end of August. The shares for Android rose to 46.9 percent from 43.8 percent in the U.S. market in November. While a fall of 5.2 percent from 5.7 percent was seen in case of Microsoft smartphones. RIM has been under pressure recently and has been the subject of constant takeover rumor.

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