Big changes at RIM?

It seems that there may be big changes coming to Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry devices. If rumours are correct then we could see a change at the top in leadership of the company. The two current joint CEO’s, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie would stay on but they would be replaced as chairman of the board of directors by Barbara Stymiest (currently the Director and Chairman of Audit & Risk Management Committee at RIM).

RIM has been under pressure from investors to make a change at the top and it could finally come. Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek posted yesterday that RIM could license it’s BB10 software to other manufacturers:

We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets).

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/01/04/rim-jefferies-says-moving-toward-licensing-bb-software/

This would be a major shift in RIM’s thinking but it could put the cat among the pigeons if BB10 turns out to be a success. Personally I’ve found that RIM are woeful at marketing and promoting their products. If they do license the use of their software we could see some much needed improvement in the marketing of BB10 software and some very interesting hardware. Thing, dare I say, could be looking up for RIM.