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View Full Version : Don't count out Research In Motion



Godfather
08-05-2011, 03:05 AM
Ken Coates, National Post · Aug. 3, 2011 | Last Updated: Aug. 3, 2011 5:24 AM ET

The debate about Canadian tech giant Research In Motion has gotten out of hand. People who don't know Waterloo from Wabash, a SIM card from a television set, are weighing in with advice about the appropriateness of operating with co-CEOs, RIM's shortcomings on software, and the company's impending fall from high tech grace. Enough already.

Research In Motion is a spectacular company and an impressive Canadian success story. The Ontario-based firm invented and commercialized some of the most important digital technologies of our age. In an era when Internet security has emerged as the vulnerable underbelly of the modern economy, Research In Motion has the best cryptography and security systems in the world. The company has a global reach, continues to innovate, produces impressive profits and has become the centrepiece of the Waterloo Region's technology eco-system.

And for all of this, they are being subjected to a prolonged commercial colonoscopy

The criticisms of co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are particularly unfair. (Disclosure: Until June 2011, I was dean of arts at the University of Waterloo. Lazaridis was chancellor and the university's largest donor. Balsillie funded the Balsillie School of International Affairs, which is administratively located in the faculty of arts.) These men are among Canada's leading business leaders, possessed of tremendous skills and vision and the entrepreneurial insight and guts to force their way into world markets. From reading the media coverage, you would think they had lucked into a short-term business opportunity and then blown it. Not so: RIM created a business of global importance, an achievement that reflects the unique combined vision and ability of the co-CEOs.

Lazaridis and Balsillie are as different as chalk and cheese, and therein lies one of the keys to RIM's success. Lazaridis is the Alexander Graham Bell and Frederick Banting of our generation. He is probably the best technology leader this country has ever produced, with a vision founded on a profound understanding of science and technology. Jim Balsillie, on the other hand, is the consummate dealmaker and opportunity scout. Ever wonder why RIM is doing so well in Indonesia and why the company has opportunities in the Middle East? Follow Balsillie's travels and you will uncover the roots of their commercial success. That he has spent a fair bit of time in the past few years in China and India shows that RIM is wellversed on the opportunities emerging in Asia. Together, Lazaridis and Balsillie understand modern business practices and the interface of technology and commerce as well as anyone in the world.

The problems with RIM reflect, at least in part, the difficulties that many people have with the financial realities of the new economy. It seems that Canadian and other investors want something out of RIM that the company and the tech sector cannot provide. High technology ebbs and flows. Companies soar and decline. Products dominate their markets and then fall precipitously. The old model of blue-chip companies, producing steady dividends for decades on end, offering constant returns and stability, is dead. The global economy produces short-term winners and losers and requires a nimbleness and transitional speed that eludes most companies.

The best tech companies morph with and respond to the marketplace. They take big hits as they reposition themselves, but well-managed firms find their feet again quickly. Remember when Apple was on the skids a few years back? Things were so bad they turfed Steve Jobs, which was akin to a sick patient agreeing to a lobotomy and the removal of his heart. Jobs returned, Apple rediscovered its design mojo, and the firm climbed to even greater heights. The premature obituaries on Apple read very much like the scare-mongering currently surrounding RIM.

Canadians need to throw their weight behind Canadian frontrunners. We are pretty good with the tall poppy syndrome - we like to cut our leaders and their organizations down to size. Apple, Microsoft and Google, in contrast, get hundreds of millions of dollars in free publicity from a compliant American media and highly supportive business community. Watch the launch of every Apple product. The gushing and fawning is off-putting, but it sure helps sell iPads and iPhones. Compare that to the hyper-critical coverage we offer in Canada. RIM and other Canadian companies need a supportive base of operations, like Taiwan provides for its high-tech firms and which Finland long offered to Nokia. High technology firms need to know that Canadians recognize their importance to the country.

RIM has a remarkable set of assets, from a long list of patents and new acquisitions to an impressive engineering corps and world-class marketers. But their greatest resources sit in the CEO offices. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie created an iconic firm and helped keep Canada on the global technology map. Betting against these two is akin to gambling that Canada has no place in the 21st-century hightech economy. Canadians need to understand that Canada's economic future is tied directly to our ability to create and sustain companies like RIM.

Lazaridis and Balsillie are among a small group of entrepreneurial nationalists who, like their Waterloo colleague Tom Jenkins of Open Text, ignored the lure of the United States and kept their company in Canada. We needs dozens more people like these two, people who believe in the country and who create jobs and wealth here. The dominant pattern in the high-tech sector is the opposite, to either relocate quickly outside Canada or sell out to foreigners.

The two co-CEOs also set new Canadians standards for philanthropy. Both men invested hundreds of millions of dollars in world-class academic projects - and have made tremendous private commitments to other charities and good causes. Lazaridis' legendary support for the Perimeter Institute launched an impressive contribution to basic science. Balsillie's double-barreled commitment to the Waterloo-based Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Balsillie School of International Affairs helped raise the profile of Canada's intellectual engagement with global problems. Their efforts have been matched by the quiet but remarkable contributions of RIM senior staff to a wide variety of causes. More to the point, Lazaridis and Balsillie established new expectations for private, engaged philanthropy in Canada.

There is a simple message here. Do not count out Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie and, even less, Research in Motion. And don't be surprised to see BlackBerry among the world leaders in technology products and services for years to come.

Ken Coates is professor of History, University of Waterloo, Ont.

Teh One Who Knocks
08-06-2011, 03:41 PM
That's not too much of a 'homer' article, is it? :lol:

PorkChopSandwiches
08-06-2011, 03:51 PM
Hahahah. Did they get a new PR firm

Godfather
08-06-2011, 03:57 PM
I think PM Harper wrote it himself to be honest :lol:

Arkady Renko
08-08-2011, 02:42 PM
can't count on them either though.

Noilly Pratt
09-29-2011, 03:58 AM
The Canadian Government pension plan has, over the years, invested a boatload of money into RIM. And I wouldn't put it past the Harper Gov't to buoy them up because of this fact.