(AP)—The largest investor in Research In Motion says he will stick with the BlackBerry company despite founder Mike Lazaridis announcement that he will leave the company.
Tag Archives: Mike Lazaridis
When CEOs Get Terminated (by companies they founded)
By Karsten Strauss, Forbes Staff With RIM’s recent launch of its Blackberry 10, founder and board member Mike Lazaridis may have felt he’d, in some way, seen his company to safe harbor. “Safe” may be an overstatement, given competition in the mobile smartphone market these days and RIMs place in it, but let’s just say it gave him a positive event to step out on. But Lazaridis gave up CEO leadership at RIM over a year ago, some say due to shareholder pressure. It must be a surreal moment to be cast aside by a company you’ve founded. At best it must be like being dunked on by your own son, at worst like being shot in the knee by him. No wonder Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg took such a strong ownership stance with his company. A number of founding company leaders have been dressed down by their own companies, some are stories of betrayal, some failure and some of redemption. In 2007, Jet Blue’s David Neeleman was pushed out of the top spot by the company he’d founded eight years prior. The reason? Service difficulties and the notion that JetBlue could have been more profitable with different leadership. Without skipping a beat, Neeleman stayed with the company and founded another airline, Azul, the following year. Aubrey McClendon founded Chesapeake Energy in 1982 at the age of 23. He announced this past January that he will step down as CEO amidst allegations of self-dealing, questionable business practices and a spendthrift nature. FORBES profiled McClendon in 2011, calling him America’s Most Reckless Billionaire. Possibly responsible for McClendon’s ouster is billionaire Carl Icahn, an investor with a presence on Chesapeake’s board, who felt he wasn’t cutting costs. In the wake of his departure announcement share prices have risen. Without the responsibility of running the company, McClendon may have time to complete the still unfinished massive wine cellar he began building in Oklahoma City in 2008. Win-win? Perhaps the most famous story of founder ouster is that of Steve Jobs. After hiring John Sculley as CEO in 1983, Jobs changed his mind about the former Pepsi President and conspired to have him removed. In a shocking twist, the Apple board sided with Sculley and Jobs was removed from his managerial role with Macintosh and resigned some months later. Following a failed but inspiring startup, NeXT Computer, and the acquisition of what would become Pixar, Apple’s purchase of NeXT brought Jobs back to Apple leadership and the rest, as they say, is history. Jobs has confessed that his ouster from Apple had been instrumental in his education and allowed him to develop his creativity and leadership. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
RIM founder says board asked him to stay as CEO
Research In Motion co-founder Mike Lazaridis says he has no plans to sell his significant interest in the BlackBerry maker now that he’s retiring as vice chairman and director. He also reveals that the board asked him last year to reconsider stepping down as chief executive. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Both BlackBerry Founders Are Gone Now. Could Either Become A Billionaire Again?
The two Canadian fellows who founded BlackBerry, and then watched their company crash, were always, famously, different. Jim Balsillie, tall and lean, managed the finances. Mike Lazaridis, shorter and stocky, was the geek–having spent a childhood summer reading every science book available at his local library–credited with creating the first smartphones. They were apart even at the company’s Waterloo, Canada, headquarters, at which they kept offices in separate buildings. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Research in Motion Returns to Profitablity in Latest Quarter
Filed under: Technology, Telecommunications, Stocks, Mobile Technology, Consumer Electronics
By ROB GILLIES
TORONTO — Research In Motion said Thursday that it sold about 1 million of its critically important new BlackBerry 10 devices and returned to profitability in the most recent quarter.
The earnings provide a first glimpse of how RIM‘s new touch-screen Z10 is selling internationally and in Canada since its debut Jan. 31. Details on the U.S. launch are not part of the fiscal fourth quarter’s financial results because the Z10 just went on sale in the U.S. last week.
In the quarter that ended March 2, Research In Motion Ltd. (BBRY) earned $98 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with a loss of $125 million, or 24 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 36 percent to $2.7 billion, from $4.2 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected $2.82 billion.
“I thought they were dead. This is a huge turnaround,” Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said from New York.
Misek said the Canadian company “demolished” the numbers, especially its gross margins. RIM reported gross margins of 40 percent, up from 34 percent a year earlier. The company credited higher average selling prices and higher margins for devices.
“This is a really, really good result,” Misek said. “It’s off to a good start.”
Chief executive Thorsten Heins said he implemented numerous changes at the company over the past year and those changes have resulted in RIM returning to profitability.
The company also announced that co-founder Mike Lazaridis will retire as vice chairman and director.
%Gallery-183720%