RIM Going Down for the Second Time as Sprint Dumps the PlayBook
Research in Motion (RIMM) is a company that keeps rolling snake eyes in a game of craps. The latest pain is Sprint (S) dumping the PlayBook tablet. That leaves RIM without one of the big three U.S. wireless carriers promoting the device, which puts all of the marketing and business development expense on the company when sales are down, investors unhappy, and consumers highly unimpressed.
This was one of RIM's bet-the-company strategies. But aren't they all at this point? After years of ignoring the dangers first from Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and then from Google (GOOG) Android, the company has dawdled its way into a position where it needs a massive hit. But every time one of its Hail Mary passes finally lands, it's on the ground about 50 yards from the receiver.
Things already looked bad when, in its last earnings call, RIM announced that it had shipped 500,000 PlayBooks. Not sold, but shipped. That's a classic distribution channel dodge, when a company doesn't want to answer how many actual customers bought a product. Also classic was the announcement of layoffs and, now traditional for RIM, the insistence by co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis that they know what they're doing. Yeah, just like the designers of the Titanic.
RIM actually sent a statement to All Things Digital that it had "decided to prioritize and focus its 4G development resources on LTE." Up until now it had pinned its hopes on Sprint and a WiMax version of the PlayBook. Dance with the one what brung you -- unless, of course, you get dumped, in which case try to look as though nothing's wrong.
It was only a week or two ago that the company released a group of phones using the new BlackBerry 7 operating system. That's not the QNX version, expected next year, that RIM promises will give those pesky iPhones and Android handsets a real challenge. And this new group, which the company need to tide over customers that wanted something more, are pretty much what has always been there.
The more I see RIM in action, the more it reminds me of Palm, thrashing away and trying to delay and deny the inevitable. The one difference is that RIM has been on more solid financial footing. But how long can that last? If the QNX-based products -- due next year, which is practically forever in mobile time -- don't do something that RIM hasn't proven itself capable of delivering so far, will the company even be around by this point in 2012? By the way, the PlayBook runs QNX. Uh, is it too early to start the death pool?
Related:
- Why the Heck Would Google Want RIM?
- Behind RIM's Fuzzy Layoff Math: It's Cutting Staff by Hiring
- RIM Lays Off 2,000 Workers -- or Does It?
- RIM is King Lear: Self-Blinded and Waiting for Death
- RIM Earnings Are the Season's New Ugly
Erik Sherman is a widely published writer and editor who also does select ghosting and corporate work. The views expressed in this column belong to Sherman and do not represent the views of CBS Interactive. Follow him on Twitter at @ErikSherman or on Facebook.
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