14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion might be determined to start licensing the upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system to other handset vendors around the world.
Moreover, the company is expected to rethink its strategy for the smartphone segment, and to start new partnerships that would eventually help it gain market share.
RIM’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie might soon lose their chairman positions and the changes in the company’s approach towards the mobile market could start from here.
A recent article on the Financial Post claims that RIM is moving towards removing its co-founders from the board seats. The news site also suggests that Barbara Stymiest could take their position. She has been a member of RIM’s board of directors since 2007.
If this happens, Barbara Stymiest could start reviewing the company’s strategy in an attempt to make it more profitable.
Thus, changes that would involve cutting costs on hardware or the signing of new partnerships would happen, Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek suggests, according to Barron's.
Misek also notes that the Canadian mobile phone maker has already made steps in this direction, through agreeing to license the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS to various handset vendors.
“We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others,” Misek reportedly stated.
“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).”
Samsung and HTC are currently greatly involved with Google’s Android operating system, while also having Windows Phone devices included in their roadmaps.
Coming up with handsets powered by BlackBerry would certainly be something new for them, though it remains to be seen whether they would actually make this step. After all, the OS has been losing significant market share lately.