Poll: Was RIM CEO Thorsten Heins Globe and Mail Editorial Effective?

Yesterday, Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins penned an editorial in The Globe and Mail entitled “RIM will ‘empower people like never before”. Was the defense of the struggling Canadian tech giant effective?Yesterday, alongside news of NHL free agent signings and the passing of television star Andy Griffith, there was something different in the Globe and Mail.

Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins penned an editorial that began with the words “Don’t count BlackBerry out.”

The hyper levels of criticism about the Waterloo mobile giant became frenzied last week when the company reported a quarter in which it lost $518 million, or $.99 cents a share, on revenue of just $2.8 billion, a 33% drop from $4.2 billion in the same quarter a year ago. What’s more, the company delayed its much anticipated new operating system, BlackBerry 10, until next year.

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Heins, sensing a need for a response more expansive than the usual analyst-only post numbers conference call, put pen to paper yesterday to write a defense of his company entitled: “RIM will ‘empower people like never before”.

Heins says that while he knows people are frustrated, he believes that RIM is not a company “at the end”, but rather, one in transition. He says BlackBerry 10 will be worth the wait. “As some pundits write RIM’s obituary” he offers “…the company’s global subscriber base continues to grow, to more than 78 million people in 175 countries. In many of those countries – some of the fastest growing markets in the world – RIM is the top smart-phone; and in some, RIM devices account for the top three spots.”

The RIM CEO, just six months on the job says that many critics are off base. He says many “….pontificate about software they have not seen or devices they have not touched, developers around the world are getting increasingly excited about the possibilities BlackBerry 10 offers.”

The 381 comments lodged to date are a mixed bag from the generally positive “They are a good company and unfortunately the stock market really encourages kicking companies when they are down.” from reader ThinkLongTerm to the negative, like reader DL4 who said “5000 of you are empowered to fill out your EI forms however you want.”

What’s your take on Thorsten Heins’ defense of Research in Motion? Have your say in our poll…

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