It can't have been a good day for RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. Upon taking the stage Tuesday evening at D: Dive Into Mobile, Lazaridis seemed lost and unable to articulate any point that would resonate with the audience. He is in a tough position, for sure, what with Blackberry OS 6 and the Torch failing to make any dent in people's perceptions that RIM is falling behind in innovation. His solution seemed to be to focus on the Blackberry Playbook which at least looks interesting and has a current UI. The problems, though, began as soon as Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher began asking him real questions about where the company is going. One area where he wasn't making any sense was in answering any question that related to when the outdated Blackberry OS was going to resemble the more attractive QNX platform the Playbook runs. His standard answer was a convoluted response that they designed the new platform around dual-core processors, something that wouldn't be in smartphones until next year.
One wonders whether someone should approach him about this philosophy next year when dual-core becomes relatively common in phones. This seemed like the most transparent stalling tactic imaginable. To evolve your software platform to the level that it isn't embarrassing compared to the competition doesn't require technology that no company is yet deploying. What's more, if the limiting factor is whether or not dual-core processors are available, perhaps Lazaridis would like to explain why that limited their flagship Blackberry Torch to a poor-quality, low-resolution screen and a 624 MHz Marvell processor that is not even close to the class used by competitors.
The culmination of this stream of poor excuses came in the Q&A portion of the inteview, where PC Mag's Lance Ulanoff fairly pointedly asked Lazaridis how he can talk about better processors for the Playbook but not put the best possible processor or screens in their current phones. Lazaridis tried to turn the question around by explaining that the Torch was developed at a time when those specs were not terribly behind. Considering that the Torch is RIM's most recent flagship phone, it was a pretty confusing way to answer the question, but revealed a much greater problem at the heart of RIM's current development pace. If what he's saying is true, then it either means that RIM is not planning far enough ahead, or it means that their product development cycle is too slow. Neither answer is acceptable and goes a long way towards explaining RIM's fall from prominence in the industry.
Ulanoff's question is included in this series of clips from All Things D. Unfortunately, they didn't included his very last line, for which he deserves a lot of credit. After Lazaridis gave the answer listed above, he asserted that Ulanoff should feel the speed and responsiveness of his Torch and imagine the performance jump when they do move to faster processors. According to a number of liveblogs, Ulanoff simply replied, "I don't see that performance. I see the lag." Of course, even if Ulanoff agreed, it's still a ridiculous argument that a Blackberry owner today should be looking forward to the next generation. By saying that, Lazaridis is showing a blatant disregard for consumers, many of whom are responding by leaving in droves.
Ulanoff's question can be seen at 4:30 in this clip: