We had earlier talked about RIM’s downfall in the past year, as a prelude to AGM. Here is all the information you need, as to what really happened at RIM’s Annual General Meeting.
Well, the AGM looked a lot like a public interrogation of Thorsten Heins, Chief Executive Officer of Research in Motion. Although, he managed to get unscathed from the grilling questions raised by the stakeholders of the company, simply by displaying his faith in the BlackBerry 10 line, and its power to reverse RIM”s fortunes. Apart from that, not a lot was offered to the miffed shareholders. Even concerns like the sale and breakup of the company along with backup options if BB10 proved to be dud, found no mention in the AGM.
After a year that wiped out nearly 80 percent of RIM’s value and posting its first operating loss in eight years, the company spoke about cutting down its costs by $ 1 billion by the end of this financial year. In order to achieve its target, RIM will cut down its external manufacturing units to 3, from the present 10. In addition to this, the company will lay off about one-third of its total workforce, that means cutting down 5000 jobs. Also RIM announced that it will be outsourcing its global repair services.
CEO, Thorsten Heins said that the company has a strong hold in the emerging markets, with its entry level devices running on BlackBerry 7 platform. Keeping this in mind, BlackBerry 7 line will continue, until a full portfolio of devices that would be running on BlackBerry 10 is launched.
Talking about the under-development BlackBerry 10, Heins confirmed that the new platform will feature video chat for its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). Also RIM plans to keep BBM, exclusive for itself, and is not keen on sharing it on other mobile platforms such as Apple Inc’s iOS or Google Inc’s Android. He also said that the BBM is a unique strength, on which the company plans to build a BlackBerry-driven social networking platform.
But before getting better, looks like RIM still has to suffer worst in the near future. As it is likely to push the sale of existing BlackBerry devices before the launch of the new platform, RIM might suffer due to the lower average selling prices and declining service revenue.
