Lots of good stuff floating around the web today about RIM, no doubt because they held their annual shareholders meeting. There are four specific articles that I think need to be called out for their interconnectedness alone.
### MarketWatch
Dan Gallagher for MarketWatch posts a short snippet titled: “[RIM board kicks off meeting with support for execs](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rim-board-kicks-off-meeting-with-support-for-execs-2012-07-10).” Which is great all by itself, but his quote from RIM is great too:
>The statement said the board believes the current team — led by CEO Thorsten Heins — is “well positioned to lead the company forward.”
Keep that in mind for the next article about RIM.
### VentureBeat
[Devindra Hardawar reports on VentureBeat that](http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/10/rim-hires-a-search-firm-to-find-more-tech-experience-for-its-board/):
>Today at its annual shareholder meeting, RIM chairwoman Barbara Stymiest confirmed that the company is indeed seeking out new board members with technical experience with the help of a search firm.
So just to get you on the same page as I am: RIM’s Board has complete faith in the executives running the company, **but** RIM’s board does **not** have complete faith in themselves.
See the problem here?
### e27
Shifting gears, [RIM announced that they will be bribing developers with a $100 million pool](http://e27.sg/2012/07/10/research-in-motion-announces-us100m-investment-to-grow-developer-community-for-blackberry-platform/) to get them to develop apps for BlackBerry 10. Joash Wee reports:
>One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues from the app.
This is actually consistent with the arrogant and oblivious nature in which RIM conducts itself, but even more interesting is the implication of this. Are the best developers, the ones that actually make fantastic apps on other platforms, motivated by $10k in guaranteed revenue? Isn’t this likely to attract the second-tier developers, the ones who have solid apps, but not apps that motivate users to switch platforms?
Paying developers to make apps for your platform is not inherently a bad a idea, but it has yet to prove effective ( `*cough*` Microsoft `*cough*` ).
### Bits Blog
Lastly, as if to perfectly sum up everything that RIM has become, [Ian Austen has this to say about the annual meeting](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/at-rims-annual-meeting-some-unpleasant-questions/):
>So much new software was integrated into BlackBerry 10 over “the last few weeks and months” that the system had become “destabilized,” he said. He added that finishing BlackBerry 10 promptly is simply a matter of time — a process that cannot be accelerated by spending more money or hiring more developers.
Austen is quoting RIM’s CEO, and there’s two phrases in that paragraph that sum up RIM nicely:
1. “The system had become destabilized.”
2. “A process that cannot be accelerated by spending more money.”
RIM doesn’t seem to realize that it is RIM itself that is “destabilized” and yet (perhaps because of that) they are trying to right the ship by spending more money.
Crazy.
Ok, I can’t leave this post alone because this is another laugh out loud moment in it:
>He said many wireless carriers were pleased with the delay because they won’t be unveiling higher speed networks that can fully exploit BlackBerry 10 until next year.
*Riiiight.*