This is the fault of amateur hour.

And there was not a dry eye in the house...

dameron: And there was not a dry eye in the house...

This made me laugh audibly.

I've never had a RIM job but I heard they were awesome back in the day. I never understood their fetish for BBM.

Tech companies are where investment money and careers go to die.

RIM did fark all when they saw the iPhone. It is time to leave when the boss has more of his golf buddies in executive management than people that were hired on merit.

When you bounce your first mortgage payment, remember that those same managers got bonuses in 2007 that were large enough for a plebe like yourself to retire.

RIP Nortel 2.0.

PushF12: Tech companies are where investment money and careers go to die.

RIM did fark all when they saw the iPhone. It is time to leave when the boss has more of his golf buddies in executive management than people that were hired on merit.

When you bounce your first mortgage payment, remember that those same managers got bonuses in 2007 that were large enough for a plebe like yourself to retire.

You sound ... concerned.

I really rather carry my Blackberry Bold 9900 than my iPhone any day (I have both).

Nexzus: RIP Nortel 2.0.

I graduated right after the Nortel collapse, couldn't get a job in my chosen field because of the flood of experienced tech workers on the market, ended up in IT. Realized IT was a waste of time and with the Canadian tech industry recovered, I decide to go back to school to update my skills and now this is looming. Now I'm not sure if I should go for an internship or buckle in for another 2 years and upgrade my diploma to a degree.

A friend just started an internship and RIM and is shiatting his pants.

Harry_Seldon: I really rather carry my Blackberry Bold 9900 than my iPhone any day (I have both).

Wow. I do too and I can't stand my Bold. It really has no redeeming qualities.

RIM needs to go ahead and just shut down. It's over, man. Let it go.

My colleagues still have state-issued ones. It's fun watching them struggle as RIM's servers go down every other week.

... as RIM's servers go down every other week.

Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat. I agree, many of our products are not at pairity with the competition. We certainly have no 'mainstream' appeal. But like like others, I genuinely enjoy using my 9900 and it does everything I need it to do. The PlayBook is entirely under-appreciated and a lot of what we do goes unnoticed due to terrible marketing.

I don't think it makes sense to root for us to outright die. I think the criticism is well-deserved, but how can less competition ever benefit you, the customer? You should be rooting for us to try harder, preferably with constructive feedback. There are plenty of smart people at RIM who work very hard and have great ideas and are doing just that. The biggest problems are in the management, not the workers. By wishing for RIM's death, you're only hurting the workers. The management is already wealthier than we could ever hope to be and will just go on to screw something else up.

Mr.Tangent: Realized IT was a waste of time and with the Canadian tech industry recovered, I decide to go back to school to update my skills and now this is looming.

A few years ago, it seems like "Canadian tech industry" meant telecom. Now it seems to mean video games.

As a long time BB user I just switched to a ICS Android. Boy, howdy, is there a big difference. I would have stuck with BB if they had an international phone that could do 3/4 of the things my HTC phone can.

daveinsurgent: ... as RIM's servers go down every other week.

Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat. I agree, many of our products are not at pairity with the competition. We certainly have no 'mainstream' appeal. But like like others, I genuinely enjoy using my 9900 and it does everything I need it to do. The PlayBook is entirely under-appreciated and a lot of what we do goes unnoticed due to terrible marketing.

I don't think it makes sense to root for us to outright die. I think the criticism is well-deserved, but how can less competition ever benefit you, the customer? You should be rooting for us to try harder, preferably with constructive feedback. There are plenty of smart people at RIM who work very hard and have great ideas and are doing just that. The biggest problems are in the management, not the workers. By wishing for RIM's death, you're only hurting the workers. The management is already wealthier than we could ever hope to be and will just go on to screw something else up.

Firstly good luck and keep your head up. Although I haven't agreed with how RIM has handled the iPhone and Android, I acknowledge the brain trust of the engineers and support staff. I know some who work there and can respect the position you are in as I had it 99 when I was at Newbridge (course I ended up making almost 5 times the amount I was in 99 last year so things did get better).

However, It's hard to appreciate the playbook with how half-baked it feels OS wise compared to Android. They flipped their targeted audience with the Playbook and dropped the ball. Just as an example, they introduced MKV support for the video player but no AC3 or DTS support so pretty much every video I have (and odds are everybody who would want a tablet) has to be converted to downsample the audio. Also would have been nice if they remembered in the video player where you last left off for any files. (Can you tell what I use it mainly for?). As a personal organizer it's good, the calendar is straightforward and integrates nicely with my gmail account, the email client is ok, could use some improvement in the interface but the browser is clunky at best. Response on it is slow and flash support is hit and miss. My suggestion although it will be ignored, allow Android to work on it or at least ad based apps. The apps are not coming over to RIM because of this (plus android support is spotty as well).

daveinsurgent: ... as RIM's servers go down every other week.

Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat. I agree, many of our products are not at pairity with the competition. We certainly have no 'mainstream' appeal. But like like others, I genuinely enjoy using my 9900 and it does everything I need it to do. The PlayBook is entirely under-appreciated and a lot of what we do goes unnoticed due to terrible marketing.

I don't think it makes sense to root for us to outright die. I think the criticism is well-deserved, but how can less competition ever benefit you, the customer? You should be rooting for us to try harder, preferably with constructive feedback. There are plenty of smart people at RIM who work very hard and have great ideas and are doing just that. The biggest problems are in the management, not the workers. By wishing for RIM's death, you're only hurting the workers. The management is already wealthier than we could ever hope to be and will just go on to screw something else up.

I was a long time fan of your products (I'm venezuelan... so, yo know where I'm going) back since the 7200 family. Owned a 8320, then a 9000 then a 9780. Until I was fed up by the constant battery pulls, hangs, compatibility issues, memory leaks, etc. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is that I couldn't block BROADCAST messages on BBM, and in a country where everybody and their mother had a blackberry (less and less everyday now though, iPhone and Android have eroded the venezuelan market where there where 7 million BB devices out of a population of 25 million people).

Was leery of switching to an iPhone 4, mostly because of the lack of BBM, but after a couple of weeks it was like "holy shiat, this is better than anything RIM has ever made" and with whatsapp I could still talk to people AND block broadcast messages.

So yea, anecdotal evidence or whatever, but that's my experience with RIM and why I would never go back to a RIM device.

They should pull a Nokia. Start making Windows and/or Android phones.

I have a 4th gen iPod, my wife has an iPhone 3 for work, my company hands out BlackBerr Bold 9700's and 9650's to the field supervisors (oilfield). I and my wife have BB Torch 9800's for our personal phones. I find it is the best phone I, and any of my coworkers, have used. It does everything an iPhone does, plus has the optional keyboard for the intricate typing (especially handy for we with the fat thumbs).

The only dislike I have is my social feed only stores 100 items or so, which cuts me shorts when I fall asleep right after a playoff game or when I'm stuck working out of he service area for a few days.

We also have a Playbook (because they're so much cheaper than iPads and do almost as much - I don't watch movies on mine). The only issue I have with that is that it takes forever and a day to turn on.

I believe BlackBerry'd misfortunes are due to management not recognizing or appreciating their niche - you were, and could have continued to be, the best industrial/commercial/non-consumer smartphone out there. Everybody else is walking down the trail BlackBerry basically blazed (cartography for this metaphor provided by Palm). But instead of knowing their role and staying in there lane, BlackBerry decided they wanted to be the iPhone, not realizing they lacked Apple's built in fanbase and, more importantly (in my opinion), iTunes (music, video, books, apps - all in one easily accessible spot).

/my boss saw what all I could do with my 9800 and has been replacing the rest of the department's work phones with 9800's as they come due for replacement. Now the rest of the departments are jealous, and looking to switch, too.

daveinsurgent: ... as RIM's servers go down every other week.

Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat. I agree, many of our products are not at pairity with the competition. We certainly have no 'mainstream' appeal. But like like others, I genuinely enjoy using my 9900 and it does everything I need it to do. The PlayBook is entirely under-appreciated and a lot of what we do goes unnoticed due to terrible marketing.

I don't think it makes sense to root for us to outright die. I think the criticism is well-deserved, but how can less competition ever benefit you, the customer? You should be rooting for us to try harder, preferably with constructive feedback. There are plenty of smart people at RIM who work very hard and have great ideas and are doing just that. The biggest problems are in the management, not the workers. By wishing for RIM's death, you're only hurting the workers. The management is already wealthier than we could ever hope to be and will just go on to screw something else up.

As a fellow IT professional I agree.

Then the MBA in me looks at the company and reminds myself that RIM got about a decade of that and nobody who could have made the change was willing to listen.

Hate to say it, but unless there's a plan to oust 95%+ of the leadership, and replace them with leaders who understand both the business and technology, all you can do is hope for a quick death.

I carried a Blackberry for work for five years. This year, management decided to also support iPhones on our network. I decided to try one, and it was such a vast difference, I really did feel like I jumped forward in time four years. The Blackberry was amazing in '07, but they just haven't kept up, and now they're way behind.

Even basic web browsing is ten times faster, at least. My Blackberry always felt like dial-up, even over wifi.

daveinsurgent: ... as RIM's servers go down every other week.

Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat. I agree, many of our products are not at pairity with the competition. We certainly have no 'mainstream' appeal. But like like others, I genuinely enjoy using my 9900 and it does everything I need it to do. The PlayBook is entirely under-appreciated and a lot of what we do goes unnoticed due to terrible marketing.

No, your devices are just complete and utter garbage and they infuriate everybody who gets their hands on them. And I'm not "mainstream". I still have stored VMDKs with BES installed siting around on the SAN somewhere.

Look, you guys are trying to sell me Packard Bell 386s in the age of Pentium IIIs. And that analogy has plenty of room to expand because Android makers and Apple are still working on making their phones sleeker and more powerful yet while RIM appears to be fumbling with the covers.

Your phones are just awful. They're slow, they're clunky, they're ugly. The only thing they've had going for them since about 2008 is battery life and, I'm sorry, but I'd rather charge my phone every night than suffer through the horror of trying to browse the web on something that's less useable than the original Mozilla browser.

As an IT guy, I would love for you guys to give me a reason to come back. I thought the security and management offered by your products was great and I loved being able to tie it to the network without futzing around with VPN or telnet, but I can't sell that to anybody when I try to show them a damn phone that's only a step better at browsing the internet than those old flip phones from the late 90s and has all the productivity capabilities of a stone tablet.

Your brand is permanently wounded and, I'm sorry, but nothing short of a complete overhaul from management through marketing is going to fix that. Before I would even think about looking at RIM again I'd need to see a complete ouster of the existing management and a complete overhaul of your devices so that they were at least somewhat competitive with Droid and iPhone. I could handle a little less functionality to gain the security and management piece, but I'm just not going to subject your horrifically unusable, clunky, slow, unreliable, and chintzy devices on my users because I'll spend more time trying to fix the crap phones than I save with the added management console.

I mean, I'm not rooting for your death, but I am watching it happen and as a consumer who's probably more friendly to your brand than most, I just don't see that changing. As a consumer, I just don't see you guys offering me any reason at all to even consider ever going back to your products.

Your stuff is just.... it's just awful.

At this point they're just keeping the lights on while the lawyers package up the IP to shop around.

daveinsurgent: Yeah... as someone who works at RIM, this statement is bullshiat.

The inability for the signing server to stay online is what caused my company to dump Blackberry. We couldn't even fix a typo in an app because everything must be signed and the signing server appears to be an old eMachines picked out of the dumpster behind the Salvation Army. Sorry, but we have business to take care of and it can't wait for the signing server guy to get back from vacation to reboot the machine. You'd think RIM would have given priority to something so critical but apparently coming up with a dozen different slightly different new phones that don't add anything useful was more important.

/Several thousand Blackberries dumped, now we use a mix of Androids and iphones.

EngineerAU: We couldn't even fix a typo in an app because everything must be signed and the signing server appears to be an old eMachines picked out of the dumpster behind the Salvation Army.

So that's where Blizzard picks up their login servers too?

I remember a colleague explaining the the signing server was mind bogglingly poorly designed, think of every software anti-pattern that could be, combine them together in to some sort of Diablo of anti-patterns, and that is the signing server. If I recall, although I think I evacuated most of the knowledge from my brain to save myself the despair, it actually loads an entire file or all keys in memory, appends, then saves, and when it runs out of memory to fit the file, they just add more memory. Changing the software means management goes "WHAT??? YOU CAN'T CHANGE SOFTWARE! IT COULD BREAK IT! THERE'S RISK! RISK RISK RISK RISK RISK!"

That's because most people still don't believe, really, in unit tests, either, around there.