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An anonymous RIM executive has released a scathing open letter that criticises every aspect of the BlackBerry-producing organisation, likening the PlayBook to a ‘Fisher Price toy’ and arguing that ‘Apple is nailing this’.
Tech site Boy Genius Report received the letter, and claims to have verified that the author is indeed a RIM employee, though the site is keeping the whistleblower’s identity a secret for now.
The fascinating and impassioned letter starts by saying, “I have lost confidence.”
It goes on to say, “Almost every project is falling further and further behind schedule at a time when we absolutely must deliver great, solid products on time.”
“When was the last time we pushed out a significant new experience or feature that wasn’t already on other platforms?”
The anonymous exec says that RIM needs to rethink its product strategy, and “stop shipping incomplete products that aren’t ready for the end user. It is hurting our brand tremendously.”
Perhaps the biggest smackdown comes when the author of the open letter slams BlackBerry’s new PlayBook tablet, which has been rather poorly received — in our own review we were unimpressed with a lack of apps.
“BlackBerry smartphone apps suck. Even PlayBook, with all its glorious power, looks like a Fisher Price toy with its Adobe AIR/Flash apps.”
On RIM’s approach to marketing, the letter lambasts the company’s focus on features that the public don’t want or care about. “25 million iPad users don’t care that it doesn’t have Flash or true multitasking, so why make that a focus in our campaigns? I’ll answer that for you: it’s because that’s all that differentiates our products and its lazy marketing.”
“A product’s technical superiority does not equal desire, and therefore sales… How many Linux laptops are getting sold?”
“BlackBerry Messenger has been our standout, yet we wasted our marketing on strange stories from a barber shop to a horse wrangler.”
Meanwhile the letter states that when it comes to user experience, “Apple is nailing this.”
RIM has fought back against the letter, in a statement that calls into question the publication’s veracity and says that it’s, “difficult to believe that a “high level employee” in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner.”
But based on the contents of the letter, it doesn’t look as if disgruntled RIM employees have much of an outlet if they’re not content with the direction of the company.
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