VerticalIntegration
Latest
Former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie's very different rescue plan revealed
Sources close to former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie have revealed his plans to save the company before he was shown the door, a plan that didn't involve handsets. He'd entered into talks with AT&T, Verizon and several European carriers to offer them use of the company's BlackBerry-exclusive network to provide limited data plans to featurephone users that included social networking and BBM -- with the aim of reducing the cellphone operators data burden and coaxing users to upgrade to smartphones. The company was working on Mobile Fusion; software that allowed enterprise and government users on iOS and Android devices to join RIM's system, which reportedly earns the company $1 billion per quarter. However, while talks progressed, company execs grew nervous and ousted him in favor of Thorsten Heins with a mandate to focus on BB10 and new devices rather than turning RIM into a service company. However, given that it's still losing money on its handset business, Heins has reopened the door to Balsillie's plan. It's just a shame Balsillie himself is keeping quiet, as we'd love to hear his thoughts in an executive-level edition of How Would you Change.
Microsoft pushing for designer PCs?
Now that Macs are PCs -- we mean really real PCs that run Windows n' stuff -- the beige box world is having a harder time than ever keeping peoples' interest when their inner John Hodgman longs to walk on the wild side and snap up a Macintel. Re-enter Microsoft: the company's latest kick is, of course, vertical integration (see: Zune), so it should come as no surprise that Redmond's supposedly been issuing a strict aesthetic best-practices kit, called the Windows Vista Industrial Design Toolkit, to PC OEMs like HP and Gateway; apparently Microsoft's got a team of twenty some-odd designers working to guarantee the first round of Vista boxes are "objects of pure desire," sure to re-obsess jejune PC-buyers like it was Win95 all over again, even in spite of Cupertino's best laid plans. The claim is that Microsoft is in no way enforcing these guidelines or requiring PC manufacturers to pretty up their boxes, but even if they were, well, given how often Windows boxes tend to get hit with the fugly stick it might not be such a bad thing.[Thanks, CoreyTheGent]
