RIM Strategic Evolution - Case Study Example

Number: Table of Contents Introduction 3 Industry 4 Research in Motion Limited (RIM) 4 Strategic evolution at RIM 5 Entrepreneurial School 5 Positioning school 8 Power school 14 Financial analysis 18 Strategies for future 22 Conclusion 22 References 23 Introduction Strategy is formulated in order to fulfill a proposed vision. The vision distinguishes a company from its competitors in a way that the former is able to build a competitive advantage. The strategy comprises overall activities that are relevant in a company. Success of the strategies depends on proposal of a unique and enlightened vision along with activities that are required to achieve the vision. It is observed in many cases of corporate world that if strategies are focused more on activities, then the vision is lost. However, if stress is given only on vision, then operational parts get neglected. This situation results in difficult issues in the board related to quality, personnel and poor productivity. The essential feature of strategy formulation is to cope up with competition that is prevailing in the changing world. The strategic plans have helped companies to combat with their rivals and reign in the market for a long term. The report highlights strategic evolution in Research in Motion (RIM) by elaborating three strategic schools of thought. Ten strategic schools of thought were explained by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel (2005), which explained strategic actions that should be taken by companies in order to achieve competitive advantage. Among these, three schools are chosen to uphold the strategic performance of RIM. RIM is a successful company in wireless communication industry. The company by employing successful strategies has created a remarkable place in the society. The report describes financial performance of the company along with the impact of current strategy on its future performance. RIM has experienced exponential growth followed by downfall. Thus, this report also encapsulates requirement of the company to re-invest in the unstable times and fight against their competitors for sustaining in the industry. Industry The wireless communication industry is characterized by rapid changes in technology, emerging competitive environment and evolving industry standards. It provides consumers with various choices and product life cycle of the company is seen to reduce to a great extent (RIM, 2014). The trend and uncertainties that prevail in this industry have forced the companies to formulate strong strategies, which will help them to make their position stable. In order to achieve success in the competitive and uncertain market, companies are bound to take unique decisions so as to ascertain a competitive position in the industry. Imitation is quite common in this industry and thus, companies should be careful enough to structure their products in such a way that they cannot be replicated. RIM being a part of this competitive industry have excelled globally with its wireless innovation. It has revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of Blackberry wireless solution in 1999 (RIM, 2014). Research in Motion Limited (RIM) Research in Motion (RIM) is referred as the industry leader for its wireless innovation globally. It greatly altered the mobile industry with the introduction of BlackBerry wireless solution in 1999. It is the first provider of secure, complete and integrated wireless email solution to mobile professionals. Since then, the company is trying to transform the outlook of mobile industry and have helped professionals to move out of the office and enjoy the opportunity to remain connected through mails. It is the world’s largest supplier of mobile phoned as more and more customers have shifted their preferences from features phones to smart phones. The company has continued to strengthen market position by leveraging its core competencies. The beginning of 21st century had been a boon for the company when it had witnessed dramatic growth in revenues from $85 million in 2000 to $6 billion in 2008 (RIM, 2014b; RIM, 2014c). Those days were quite prosperous since it brought in huge cash for the company as well as the investor as the latter received higher dividends during their investment period. However, the good times did not continue for long. The company started to encounter challenges for promoting the Blackberry range. The major problems were due to technical mishaps, adaptation of new market conditions and delay in introduction of the new product. In spite of knowing these problems related to Blackberry phones, 77 million customers continued to purchase Blackberry products and services. So, the company maintained strong balance sheet account with liquidity amounting to $ 2.1billion as on March 2012 (RIM, 2014d). The main strength of the devices lies in the industry leading security that is offered by the company. Other applications such as, push-based email connectivity as well as hardware and software integration, had helped RIM to become the leader in the market. The services provided by them also appeals to the enterprise market. Based on their main strength and ability to identify the demand of tablet in market, the company introduced Blackberry Playbook in 2011 (Weinberg, 2011). The device was built on a unique platform of operating system known as QNX. The operating system helped in performing multi-tasks and possessed high processing speed, enabling users to experience the intuitive touch screen. Strategic evolution at RIM This section of the research paper elaborates strategic initiatives that are taken by RIM by taking into consideration the above three schools of thoughts (Topolsky, 2012). Entrepreneurial School Leadership and CEO The entrepreneurial schools, in this context, explain the vision of the creator of RIM. Mihalis Lazaridis, founder of RIM, was born in Turkey to Greek parents. He was destined to become the wisest person in the Canadian business since childhood. Since his childhood, he had focused on innovation and his mechanical hands were always seeking new inventions through experiments. Douglas Fregin, co-founder of RIM, was by his side from his younger days. He, with his friend Fregin, continued to invent items like, solar-powered water heater to track sun light, which had even helped them to win the science fair. Two weeks before graduating, both the friends had quit school to launch their new foundation, RIM. The office was located in a strip mall. The first product invented by the founders had led to a contract of $600,000 with General Motors. The development of barcode technology for film was another achievement for Lazaridis, which helped in reducing days of editing to few minutes. RIM generated $1 million revenue and excessive demand for the company products led to short supply (Watson, 2013). Lizaridis lacked business skills that became the main weakness of his business. James Balsillie, born in 1961, was the son of an electronic technician. He had good entrepreneurial skills that just needed a stroke to get identified. From his early childhood days, he had shown marketing skills by selling holiday cards to residents of his home town, moving from door-to-door. After completing his MBA from Harvard University, Balsillie had joined Sutherland Schultz, a technological firm in Ontario, as an executive. Sutherland was about to take over RIM in early 1990 (Watson, 2013). Nonetheless, Sutherland failed to do so; but, during the meeting, Lazaridis identified the excellent skills and persona of Bastille and offered the latter to join RIM. Balsillie eagerly accepted the offer and since then, they worked hard on strategies for elevating the position of RIM in the industry. The two CEOs successfully navigated the dotcom mania. The concept of wireless email was first established by Lazaridis and Balsillie was able to sell it very wisely. Balsillie had a charismatic attitude along with the ability to convince people easily; this helped RIM to recover from a loss of $6 million (Watson, 2013). The visionary process of the company was clear and focused, where the two CEOs had given their full effort to establish an enterprise market all over the world. In 1997, the company went public on Toronto Stock Exchange at $7.25 (Watson, 2013). RIM encountered another big contract of $70 million for manufacturing Inter@active 950 pagers. The invention of Blackberry had, however, made the company notably prosperous. With the innovation of Lazaridis and Balsillie’s marketing skills, the product was brilliantly targeted at the business class people and also government workers. The company highlighted the data security part of Blackberry. The first year’s sale of Blackberry amounted to $85 million and in 2000, revenue rose to $221 million. The number of subscribers amounted to 160,000 in North America. The share price of RIM rose from $7.25 to $60 with the success of Blackberry all over the world (Watson, 2013). The figure below indicates the sales figure of Blackberry across the world: Figure 1: Market share of Blackberry (20007-2011) (Source: Watson, 2013) With the internet bubble burst, stock price of RIM came down to $8. Nonetheless, the demand for Blackberry never declined. In 2008, Barack Obama revealed that he carried two Blackberry phones. Following that, the number of subscribers increased to 20 million and market capitalization reached close to $80 million. The CEOs easily sailed through the hard times and placed the company at a dynamic position in the industry, thereby establishing the most valuable company in Canada (Watson, 2013). Positioning school The positioning school of thoughts, in case of RIM, is explained through BCG Matrix, competitive advantage and Porter’s five forces. Competitive Advantage The successful leadership of Balsillie and Lazaridis pioneered the company in the enterprise market for providing wireless communications. It combined mobile phone and security mail services. They cultivated their core competencies and internal resources to meet the demand of the enterprise market (Hicks, 2012). The competitive advantage of the company is security and innovative technologies, which are simplified for users to satisfy the needs of corporate customers. Competitive advantage is established when companies have the ability to translate their technologies and skills into competencies. These competencies are required to get adapted to changing opportunities. This school of thoughts assisted the company to expand their subscriber base to 9 million by mid-2007 (Watson, 2013). Figure 2: Competitive advantage of RIM (Source: Watson, 2013) The diagram above elaborates the competitive advantage of RIM. The core competencies constitute Blackberry Messenger (BBM) quick communication, integrated software and hardware; reliability and security; and push based email. It can be inferred that during initial years, the company started its venture with definite strategies as it positioned Blackberry as the enterprise resource tool. The company targeted the corporate customers to sell Blackberry products. The novelty of the company rests in the push-based email technology through which subscribers are notified on email without using them personally. The email concept was a breakthrough in the innovation lines of Blackberry, which soon succeeded within the business. The company occupied a competitive position using BBM (Blackberry Messenger), which was used as a unique selling proposition among the frequent text users. The CEOs worked on designing ideas that were based on aspects such as, battery life, size and bandwidth. The duo also modified the product design by introducing features like, QWERTY style of keyboard and Navigation Ball in Blackberry pearl, during 2006. The new product design was welcomed by the consumers until Apple iPhone was launched in year 2007. Steve Jobs ruined the self-imposed design of RIM and re-defined the idea of smart phone among consumers by introducing touch screen with bigger size and better quality. Porter’s Five Forces Bargaining power of Suppliers The bargaining power of the suppliers is moderate because there is huge number of hardware and software manufacturers for cell phones; however, the operating system of Blackberry is complicated and restricts a number of software developers who work with the company. The issues were confronted by the company when the sale of Blackberry was struggling to obtain the native application for the launch of Z10. Bargaining power of buyers The bargaining power of the buyers is high as there are huge numbers of competitors in the market who sell similar, but simpler products, at a lower price. So, customers of the product can switch to other brands if they find same applications at a cheaper price. The switching cost is either low or moderate, depending on the contract. Threat of new entrants The threat of new entrants is low since entry is very expensive for any new market. The cost of Research and Development is quite high. It is difficult to negotiate with the distribution channels since distributors are already engaged with the big names. Threat of Substitutes The threat of substitution is high. RIM had first launched the revolutionary smart phone in 1999. The first competitor, Apple, emerged in 2008 with the launch of iPhone. They encountered negligible threat of substitution in the past; nonetheless, since the launch of Apple’s iPhone, the threat has only seemed to increase and is still continuing with the newly introduced Android. Android is a cheaper product with similar functions and applications like, RIM and Apple. Apple also has the similar attributes; yet, it is considered as a superior product than RIM. Therefore, it has threatened the existence of Blackberry with regard to quality and price (Weardon, 2011). Competitive Rivalry The competitive rivalry is huge among best players in the market, such as, Nokia, Microsoft, Google and Apple. In addition to this situation, product differentiation is also low. BCG Matrix The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is also known as growth share matrix, which was developed in 1968. The matrix has segmented their products into four quadrants: Questions Marks, Rising Stars, Dogs and Cash Cows. The quadrants are made based on market share of the products. The following explains the BCG matrix of RIM: 1) Cash Cow (Product: Blackberry pager): The success of RIM devices had been evident with the two-way pagers, which is considered as the Cash cow product of the company. The cash cow of the model describes the highly profitable products, which are also low on investment. It signifies the foundation of financial success of the company. In August 1998, the product --Inter@ctive Pager-- was first shipped and it had given good communication connectivity to customers through palm-sized device. The LCD display and full QWERTY styled keyboard allowed the pager users to effortlessly respond to messages that were received. The product appeared as the market leader since it was easy to use and compact in size with long lasting battery life. At that time, there was huge demand for pagers, given that there were a number of settings for applications such as, portfolio management, wireless e-mail and continuous two-way communication. The pager device of RIM had constantly incurred sales during launch of Blackberry, which was known as the Rising Star. The first launch of Blackberry device in 2000 and sale of Inter@ctive products had captured a major portion of the market of the industry. In 2001, with worldwide adoption of Blackberry, the highest product sales of RIM were experienced. The non-Blackberry wireless hand phones accounted for the remaining 37% of the product sales at the end of 2001 (Draft, 2008). 2) Dog (Product: Pager): In 2000, Nortel and RIM joined hands and went into a collaborative effort for developing product and marketing agreement with an objective of expanding the range of pager services outside North America. In the same year, the hardware and services were passed outside the North American borders, which generated good sales throughout Europe. During the end of 2001, the company had sold 175,000 units of its product all over Britain and had planned to move beyond this territory to Netherlands and Ireland. The Blackberry service had gained huge popularity in offices of North America like, IBM and also among the military. The increase in revenue was seen to double; however, RIM was observed to encounter a loss of $7 Million in 2001. There was a requirement of evaluation of RIM’s operating expenses. The company had shed its lowest growth segments as well as concentrated on the new products for differentiating themselves from the increasing number of competitors (Versace, 2010). 3) Rising Star (Product: Blackberry Smartphone): The smart phone market in United States is the best example to explain rising star phenomena in the BCG matrix. The key trends in the smart phone market have been characterized as fast growing with constant introduction of new products. The market has strong competition with aggressive pricing. The need of customers is fulfilled by prompt replication of technological advancements and price changes. The most popular device of RIM, Blackberry wireless device, had drawn in huge revenue from the market. The largest market for smart phones had been captured by RIM’s Blackberry. Blackberry had been able to generate maximum profit for the company and thus, is put in the Star quadrant of the BCG Matrix. A star is referred to the product that generates huge cash because of high market share that it holds. Even so, this consumes large amount of cash as growth rate is high. 4) Question Marks (Product: Blackberry notepad): The smart phone of RIM had proved to be successful in the market since, apart from the targeted professional customers, common people were also attracted towards the newly defined products that the company had launched for its profitable venture. According to BCG model, the products that are not known comprise the quadrant of Question Marks. The characteristics of Question Marks constitute rapid growth, employment of huge cash and low market share. The characteristics can possess huge risk, considering that this employs considerable time for proving whether they are Rising Star or Dog. The product of RIM that can be classified as question mark is the tablet. The product has not been developed fully and has been rumored to be known as the BlackPad. If development of the tablet is completed, then the product will exactly resemble the IPad of Apple and Android tablet of Microsoft. The expectations of the market and loyal customers of Blackberry had increased and at the same time, controversy of the BlackPad caused huge capital loss for RIM. The company would have been successful with its products if it could have concentrated on business tailored devices and target the established customers base. The company could have used its famous cash cow product for funding and building successful tablets. RIM needed to expand the infrastructure of BB (Blackberry) for transforming the question mark into become Rising Star. Currently, RIM desires to take into account durability of the tablet for framing long-term strategies for the product. The technological changes are abrupt to the society and thus, the company should keep in pace with the same, thereby sustaining in the competitive market. RIM had lagged behind Apple, since Apple’s iPad had been successful even before introduction of the tablet. The late arrival of RIM’s tablet in the market had overshadowed the merger of laptops and tablets in consolidated devices (Griffin, 2011). Power school The power school of thoughts elaborated the power of RIM with respect to the external stakeholders. The external stakeholders here refer to the employees, shareholders of RIM and the public as a whole. RIM has developed strategies which are in from of power and politics which has influenced the external and internal environment to a great extent. RIM undertook certain strategies just to shape its market position among its competitors and defined customers and shareholders as its main target for operating its business. The stakeholder value of RIM has been elaborated below: Stakeholder Value RIM had encountered a lot of problems with its stakeholders and so did the relationship that they shared. The stakeholders comprise the employees and investors. The shareholders’ meeting that was held in June 2011 had revealed that the smart phone makers were criticized by investors, since the management had caused blunder by cutting down the stock price to half over the past few years. The company in order to avoid an open revolt from the shareholders had given options to them for electing their directors. RIM had already lost confidence on the application developers during that time and its accountability could make no difference in long-term viability of the company (Yarrow, 2011). The company tried to avoid the vote of shareholders by breaking down the joint chairman and CEO structure, thereby setting up a new independent committee for rectifying the situation. The investors, Northwest & Ethical Investments LP were called for the vote, who had stated that RIM had six months time to prove that the leadership structure was tenable. The changes in the CEO structure were planned by the founders since they found it necessary to undertake new team of leaders who will add up to the success of the organization. Therefore, Lazaridis had declared in press release held on January 22, 2012, that the company would undergo changes in the top management level. It was also decided by the founders, Lazaridis and Balsillie that they would step down from their position and assign their roles to co-chief executives of Canadian firm, Thorsten Heins. They will also surrender their roles as the co-chairmen of the board of RIM. They appointed Barbara Stymiest, to execute the role of co-chairman who was a former prominent person in Canadian finance. She assured the shareholders in the annual they should remain supportive to the company so that it can help them to generate more money for their future. She stated in front of the shareholders that the executive team was competent enough to lead the company and combat against the challenges that would come in future. The team was talented enough to make use of the opportunities that lie before them. The shareholders were of the opinion that changes could have been executed long before. Nevertheless, the company was encountering huge competition from Apple and thus it did not take any abrupt decision of such changes, In fact, later when the leaders felt it necessary to undertake the changes the situation was quite stable and they took the decision since there was huge up rising among the shareholders for the change in board. RIM continuously encountered challenges from its competitors regarding the sale of smart phones. The net profit of the company decreased with the decrease in sale of smart phone. It decreased from $911 million in 2010 to $265 million in 2011. It affected the share price of the company and it fell up to 70% in 2012. The investors thus desired for changes in the boards so as that they are benefitted by the new strategies that should be undertaken by the new committee. The new board members who were put forth for the election purpose were confirmed by the shareholder sat the meetings. This included two new directors namely Fairfax Financial Holding’s chief executive Prem Watsa and the former Goldman Sachs’s executive, Timothy Dattels. The investors withdrew 15% and 30% of the votes. The reason behind this withdrawal was however explained by the chief executive of Jaguar, Vic Alboini. He suggested the withdrawal represented that the shareholders were not at all satisfied with the nominees of the company. Hence, he gave a clear indication to the board of RIM that they should take care of the issue and take the message on a serious note since the shareholders are not satisfied with the performance of the company’s activities. Therefore, the company must take into consideration the opinions of the shareholders since they form an integral part of the company. Later in the annual meeting Barbara has confirmed that they had listened to the opinions of the shareholders and they would work hard to fulfill their desire. Barbara had stated that the company had hired external search team to assist RIM for finding new directors who could head the company towards a prosperous future. However, she also mentioned that the qualities that they were seeking in the new directors were already present in the existing directors so there was no need of replacing them. Nevertheless, after considering the opinions from the shareholders, the company had to take few changes for welcoming new directors. The new co-chairman stated that launch of new devices in the following years would unlock the shareholder value of RIM. One of the prominent shareholders of RIM, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (FFH) had doubled its stake in the company and had become the biggest investor for the company. It had offered confidence to the ailing Canadian company, FFH. The company is owned by Prem Watsa and he owns around 51.9 million shares of RIM according to the regulatory fillings of the company. He joined the board of RIM as director in 2012. The RIM shares had however tumbled up to 95% from the peak of 2008 as the sales of Blackberry smart phones were eroded from the market as the smart phones of Apple dominated the market. It was observed that it would take three to four years for the company to revive its position in the market and thus the stock price was also undervalued. Watsa decided to double the stock of RIM and this idea made him the biggest investor in the history of RIM. He had predicted the downfall of banks in United States which was tied with the collapse of submarine mortgage market. As RIM failed in selling Playbook tablet and there was considerable fall in the share price, the shareholders stated that the Canadian wireless giant had broken up and should be pout for sale. The shareholders exclaimed the company had lost confidence on the management and thus they want new committee who had the capability to move towards a better tomorrow. The shareholders said that it was not worthy of investing nay money further since the share price was declining as well as the dividend was decreasing. The shareholders value was questioned by many critics and they stated that the company did not care for the shareholder and was thinking of planning their profit since Barbara said that the committee was formed with the ideal brains and they were quite capable of doing their job. It indicated that the company would not concentrate in replacing their executives with new ones. The strategies undertaken by the existing committee failed to bring any changes in the sales of Blackberry in the market. Thus, the investors wanted new ideas and strategies from new set of people. Apart from the above mentioned aspects, the management of RIM is also accountable for preparing and presenting the consolidated financial statements and all financial information in the annual report that is published annually or quarterly. The consolidated financial statements are prepared by complying with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) of United States and included certain amounts based upon the estimates and judgments that are required for preparation of the same. The financial information that appears in the annual report helps investors to form an idea regarding financial status of the company. The statements are audited by the Audit and Risk Management Committee and are later approved by Board of Directors of the company. The company has maintained the shareholders’ value by providing them with the right financial information, which is audited correctly and accurately by the auditors. The accounting procedures comply with the general rules. Financial analysis The financial analysis of the company over the seven years is executed in this section. Figure 3: Revenue contribution of RIM (2006-2012) (Source: RIM, 2014a; RIM, 2014b) From the above figure, it is evident that maximum sales of the company is derived from the device category, since sales of Blackberry has increased over the same period of time. The following figure elaborates the sales of Blackberry from 2009 to 2011. Figure 4: Sales of Blackberry (Source: RIM, 2014a; RIM, 2014b) From the above figure, it is reflected that sales of the device have increased over the years. It has added more cash to the company as well as boosted confidence within the company so as to expand the range of products for customers. Figure 5: Sales revenue and operating profit (Source: Author’s creation) From the above figure, it is observed that the operating profit of the company has fallen over the years from 20% to 8% with increase in the sales revenue. The profit was declining as there was huge competition in the smart phone market and new companies had captured market with imitations or even new products. Figure 5: Growth rate of RIM (Source: RIM, 2014a; RIM, 2014b) During 2008, the company encountered aggressive growth due to increased sale of RIM’s devices, which are consumer friendly and reliable because of the brand. Even so, the company encountered swift drop in 2012, indicating that the smart phone business is highly threatened by its competitors. The following ratios elaborate the financial position of the company: Ratio Values Current ratio 1.8 Quick ratio 1.4 Debt equity ratio 24.7 Total liabilities to total asset 52 The current and quick ratio of the company elaborates that RIM has a strong liquidity position as it can pay off debt easily in the short-term and long-term, without harming the inventory. The debt equity ratio signifies that the company has been aggressive in financing its growth with the help of debt. Strategies for future The challenges that the company is going to face in future can become the main subject of study. RIM, during the past few years, had encountered growth and fall due to the external and internal environment. The challenges constitute internal capabilities of the company in order to match with that of external challenges. Therefore, the company should concentrate on its core competencies and try to develop the product range (Taylor, 2012). The company should also target the enterprise market in order to enjoy good return from the same, since those customers are brand loyal. Conclusion It can be concluded that RIM has succeeded in capturing a major portion of industry with its broad range of devices, besides Blackberry. The company stresses on the enterprise market and sells their products to professionals as they did for Blackberry. Nonetheless, it was noticed that Blackberry was liked by all sorts of people and thus, it can be said that the devices had revolutionized the entire industry. The smart phone market of the company was threatened by existence of its rivals such as, Apple, who had introduced iPhone and captured a good portion of RIM. From 2012 onwards, the sale of Blackberry was seen to drop, owing to multiple competitors who imitated the software applications of RIM and sold the devices at a much cheaper price. Therefore, to sustain in the market, RIM has to concentrate on the core competences as well as strategies accordingly. References Ahlstrand, M., Ahlstrand, B. & Lampel, J. (2005). Strategy safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York: Free Press. Draft, R. (2008). The new era of management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Griffin, R. (2011). Fundamentals of management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Hicks, J. (2012). Research No motion: How the Blackberry CEO’s lost an empire. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/21/2789676/rim-blackberry-mike-lazaridis-jim-balsillie-lost-empire#section-link-title7 RIM. (2014a). Annual Report, 2011. Retrieved from http://us.blackberry.com/content/dam/bbCompany/Desktop/Global/PDF/Investors/Documents/2011/2011rim_ar.pdf RIM. (2014b). Annual Report, 2008. Retrieved from http://us.blackberry.com/content/dam/bbCompany/Desktop/Global/PDF/Investors/Documents/2008/2008rim_ar.pdf RIM. (2014c). Annual Report, 2000. Retrieved from http://us.blackberry.com/content/dam/bbCompany/Desktop/Global/PDF/Investors/Documents/2000/2000rim_ar.pdf RIM. (2014d). Annual report 2012. Retrieved from http://www.rim.com/investors/documents/pdf/annual/2012rim_ar_40F.pdf Taylor, P. (2012). RIM boosts blackberry user base by 2 million. Retrieved from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/94eac996-073a-11e2-b148-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2EVx7SJft Topolsky, J. (2012). RIM US Head: Blackberry 10 Is An Entirely New Way Of Interacting With The World Around Us. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/3/3135862/rim-us-head-blackberry-10-a-new-way-of-interacting-with-the-world Versace, C. (2010). An Apple Win Deals Another Blow to RIMs Blackberry. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/10/23/an-apple-win-deals-another-blow-to-rims-blackberry/ Watson, T. (2013). Leadership at Research in Motion. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation. Weardon, G. (2011). Nokia and Microsoft Sign Strategic Tie-Up. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/11/nokia-microsoft-sign-strategic-tieup Weinberg, S. (2011). RIM to release playbook tablet. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704461304576216264263727564.html Yarrow, J. (2011). RIM Misses Big On Revenue, Stock Tanks. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/live-rim-earnings-2012-3?IR=T Read More