The question is whether it’s too little too late? Has RIM already slipped too far down the slippery slope? Even if he can stabilize the situation, isn’t RIM sort of like the Costa Concordia, clinging to the shore but in danger of dropping into the abyss at any moment?

Any who the heck is Thorsten Heins anyway, any why is he so darn enthusiastic? For evidence of his optimism, check out the video clips below created by RIM. In and of themselves, they’re a dramatic PR departure for RIM, which seemed to lose touch with how to communicate to consumers. Heck, Heins even appeared on the CBC’s Metro Morning with Matt Galloway this morning!

So what does Heins do now?

What what will he be allowed to given Lazaridis and Balsillie are on the board and major shareholders? Will he kill the PlayBook, which is describes as a “mobile computing platform”? Will he magically get QNX into the market sooner rather than later? Does it matter that RIM has $1.5 billion in cash, no debt and 75 million subscribers?

And will  Jim Balsillie now has the freedom to really pursue an NHL hockey team?

Yes, there are lots of questions but, truth be told, who knows whether RIM can rebound or it will continue to struggle before it gets snapped up by Nokia, Microsoft or Samsung.

As a proud Canadian, I want Heins to be a miracle-worker. If he can revive RIM, we should award him the Order of Canada because RIM is a key part of the Canadian high-tech and new economy landscape.

More: Here’s a six-step plan that I suggested for RIM to get its mojo back. They’ve now done two of my six suggestions. The National Post’s Matt Hartley has a Q&A with Heins, who said his first priority is to “continue selling BlackBerry 7 and to bring PlayBook 2.0 out in February”.

Heins on RIM’s bright future:

Heins on why the PlayBook isn’t irrelevant:

Here’s a recipe for RIM to regain some of its lustre, although I highly doubt it will become a tier-one smartphone player again.

1. Appoint an independent chairman to provide shareholders with the confidence the board is really vested in protecting the interests of shareholders. Whether it’s Barbara Stymiest, a current RIM director, or someone outside the company, it would provide the investment community with a small dose of confidence the company is serious about overhauling its corporate structure.

2. Hire a top-notch CEO or COO. In either case, RIM must attract fresh blood with new ideas, energy and lots of credibility. It has to be someone who has extensive experience in the smartphone and/or wireless industry. As important, Balsillie and Lazaridis would have to give this person a lot of decision-making autonomy, even though this would be a huge challenge.

3. Either fix the PlayBook (and I’m not talking about incremental software upgrades) or kill it. Nine months the PlayBook was launched, it’s still a half-baked product in a world with far too much competition. Even die-hard BlackBerry users aren’t all over the PlayBook because it does not have even the basic features. I mean, how can a company that built its business upon mobile e-mail create a tablet that doesn’t have native e-mail. It explains why RIM is now selling all its PlayBooks for $299.

4. Release the new operating system, QNX, sooner rather than later. That said, QNX has to be completely baked when it’s released. Anything less than an OS that works really well, delights users and represents a tangible upgrade over the current OS will be seen as yet another strategic and tactical disaster.

5. Take a new, fresh and different look at its marketing. Even though RIM has become a pro-sumer brand, its marketing seems unfocused and scattered. Again, fresh blood from the outside would be a great move.

6. Regain its corporate humility. When I started writing about RIM in the late-1990s, it acted like a Canadian – successful and confident but not brash or arrogant. RIM to needs to recognize its roots and how it emerged s a leading wireless player by having a product that met a need (mobile e-mail) in a way that delighted users. RIM’s belated apology for its network outage last year was evidence that its needs to re-Canadianize itself – perhaps sharing a 24, eating some poutine and watching hockey might do the trick.

Links:

Would a new chairman fix RIM? (New York Times)
BGR reports that there will only be one BlackBerry 10 smartphone, the London.

When you think about it, RIM shares would make for the perfect stocking stuff. At less than $14, they’re completely reasonable after being on sale earlier this year for close to $70. As a result, they fall into that nice less than $20 range. For those of you on a budget, a RIM share also makes the perfect gift, which would be appreciated, although I suspect not as much as a new iPhone4S.

There are lots of reasons a RIM share would look perfect in your stocking:

1. There are lots of them available. In fact, it seems everyone is trying to unload inventory at the same time. This means there’s no risk of disappointing loved ones by coming home empty-handed.

2. While relatively inexpensive, there’s also a chance a RIM share could rise in value. Who knows, maybe the BlackBerry 10 will hit the market in September as opposed to A YEAR FROM NOW. Maybe RIMM will be acquired – Microsoft, Google, Huawei – and your RIMM share would jump to $20 (Woot!). Maybe a new CEO will be sent to Kitchener-Waterloo to shake things up.

3. It’s a made-in-Canada gift so you can “buy local” rather than purchasing a holiday gift that has been shipped thousands of miles across the Pacific. Nothing says I love you more than a 8″ x 10″ stock certificate, which also can be taken to school for show and tell.

4. It’s a perfect way to support Canada’s flagship technology company. Yes, RIM has been plagued by hubris, strategic mistakes, and the introduction of the half-baked, terribly designed PlayBook but that shouldn’t stop you from showing RIM some love, particularly if it doesn’t cost you much. Who knows, maybe the shares will increase in value, making it easier to buy a BlackBerry 10 for next year’s holidays…if it hasn’t been delayed yet again.

5. And, who knows, RIM shares could soon be a collector’s item if RIM gets snapped up by a giant corporate conglomerate who decides to do a rebranding to get a fresh start.

While it’s easy to kick RIM while it’s down, the idea of RIM becoming the next Nortel should be a troubling concept for Canada and the Canadian high-tech sector. Having a global player in our backyard that drives innovation (well, it used to drive innovation), provides people with experience and the financial wherewithal to start other companies, and support the local economy/community are positives.

With the disappearance of Nortel, the Canadian telecom industry and the economy took a major blow, particularly when you consider the hundreds, if not thousands of spin-offs that came out of Nortel.

Who knows if RIM can resuscitate itself. The PlayBook (which still doesn’t have native email!), the delay of BlackBerry 10 and senior management’s unwillingness to make changes at the top have created plenty of reasons for pessimism.

Here’s a radical idea inspired by an exchange on Twitter with the National Post’s Matt Hartley: RIM should embrace its startup roots and the entrepreneurialism that made it a wireless tour de force by creating a new unit focused on teenagers or perhaps people under the age of 25. It may sound like an odd concept but here’s what I’m thinking:

Despite the BlackBerry’s diminished stature, young people are huge fans based on “in-depth research”, which has consisted of looking at their wireless devices.

Anecdotally, the BlackBerry rules the roost. Maybe it’s BBM, which lets them connect with friends and family for free. Perhaps it’s the keyboard, which makes it easy to use BBM and social media services such as Facebook. Whatever the reason, the young’uns are a pocket of strength for the BlackBerry.

A New Business Focused on Young People

To capitalize on it, RIM should carve out a new startup-like unit focused on young people. The new business would be all about creating devices, applications, marketing campaigns, events and social media activity for the under-25 demographic.

Free from the shackles of RIM’s enterprise roots (aka Your father/mother’s BlackBerry), the new business would have the freedom to be hip, cool and connected with an audience that aren’t geeks but looking for devices that meet their lifestyle needs.

This business would use BlackBerry hardware but customize it for younger people. The device, for example, would emphasize chat, video, music and social media, while e-mail and the phone would be standard features but certainly not the main selling points.

The marketing, created by an agency with expertise in younger consumers, would appeal directly to a demographic that knows what they want but are looking for someone who understands their needs and how they live. The lead spokesperson would be someone such as Justin Bieber. a BlackBerry user, who grew up close to RIM’s Waterloo headquarters.

It would be a radical move for RIM to create a new business but it might take some strategic and tactical creativity to jump-start the company’s prospects.

As it now stands, RIM has a split personality. It has a strong foothold in its traditional enterprise market but, at the same time, trying to figure out how to play in the pro-sumer market. This has made it a challenge from a marketing perspective given they’re two different audiences.

The creation of a new business focused on young people would be a way to resolve this problem and, in the process, maybe bring back RIM’s mojo.

But the terrible debut of the PlayBook, the modest reception to the BlackBerry 9900, and the recent and frustrating global network outage has not only put RIM on its heels but causing some industry watchers such as GigaOM to envision an even darker future.

As much as it would be hard to believe RIM and the BlackBerry could crumble before our eyes, it wasn’t that long ago that Nortel was king of the telecom world before it went stumbling and fumbling into bankruptcy protection and an embarrassing asset sale.

So what if RIM disappeared? Would there be anything good to come out of it? Here are some reasons that accentuate the positive.

1. It would free up a lot of people within RIM, who have gained valuable experience and, in many cases, a lot of financial security over the past 10 years. These people could work for other companies that need talented people, as well as finance startups that would benefit from having smart and strategic money.

2. It would allow the Kitchener-Waterloo technology hub to not be dependent on a giant company. Now, I know my friends in K-W will contend there is already a large and thriving community but my take is it could be even more diversified. It’s like when a giant tree falls in the forest. All of a sudden, the sunlight is allowed to pour in, which lets existing companies thrive and new companies to sprout up.

3. Given RIM went from start-up to world-class company, it would hopefully be a huge reminder that supporting Canada’s start-up community is essential to the health of Canada’s high-tech community and our overall economic prosperity. There tends to be a lot of talk about creating jobs and nurturing the New Economy but Canada needs more walk in terms of financial support.

4. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis would be free to pursue other entrepreneurial and philanthropic pursuits. Over the past 15 years, they have done an amazing job building a world-class company. Along the way, they have also done some impressive non-RIM projects such as creating and funding the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Lazaridis) and the  Centre for International Governance Innovation (Balsillie).

If they were liberated from RIM, they could focus their time and efforts on things such as supporting start-ups, providing mentorship, and influencing policy and economic changes. Heck, Balsillie might even be finally get himself a NHL franchise.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge RIM supporter but you have to be realistic and pragmatic. Having covered the rise and fall of Nortel, nothing in the technology world surprises me. It’s a fickle, volatile and ever-changing landscape in which anything could happen, and often does. While RIM’s demise may seem extreme, it is possible so it’s a good exercise to consider the silver lining.

Links:
- The iPhone 4S sells out at U.S. carriers (Bloomberg)
- Can Teenagers Save RIM (Mark Evans Tech)
- BlackBerry Brand Bruised But Not Beaten (CBC)

So, here’s my thinking about the BlackBerry, which struck me again when I went to a friend’s 20th anniversary party last weekend, and saw many of the teenage children using BlackBerrys.

While the cool kids and geeks love the iPhone, teenagers seem – and this is purely anecdotal - to like the BlackBerry. The biggest reason seems to be the keyboard makes it easy to use Facebook, Twitter, text-messaging and BBM. The BlackBerry may not be as sexy anymore but it meets the needs of a large and influential demographic at a time when touchscreen-based smartphones are here, there and everywhere.

The question is what Research in Motion should do about teenagers. Embrace them? Ignore them? The biggest challenges are two-fold: the BlackBerry has mostly been a corporate tool used by older people (aka more than 30-years-0ld), and RIM is not a particularly savvy marketing company.

This could make it difficult to RIM to effectively pursue and engage teenagers unless it embraces a new approach and arms itself with executives and an advertising agency that get teenagers.

A Split Personality

At the same time, RIM also needs to solidify its strong foothold in the corporate market. It means RIM may have to sport a split-personality by focusing its sales and marketing efforts at divergent parts of the smartphone market: older corporate, suit-wearing types and teenagers.

Can RIM pull it off? Time will tell but the upside for RIM is it appears the new BlackBerry 9900 has enough goodness to establish itself as an attractive option for both demographics that still find the BlackBerry to be compelling or, at least, a better option than the iPhone.

Links:

- A survey in the U.K. shows that older mobile users went for the iPhone4, while teenagers prefer BlackBerrys.

It could be the dominance of the iPhone, a failure to execute strategically, weak leadership, products that failed to resonate with changing consumer tastes, or a market that shifted away from the BlackBerry.

The Web Browser Sucked

But if you want to get down to the heart of the BlackBerry’s woes, it’s the browser. For years, the BlackBerry excelled at e-mail and it had a pretty good phone but the Web browser sucked – and that would be a polite description.

Even as the mobile Web gained more traction, the browser on the BlackBerry was terrible to the point of being unusable (and some would argue it is still unusable!). Everyone knew it but expected RIM to eventually fix it so they could surf the Web in the same way they did on a desktop. But, for whatever reason, it took RIM a long, long time to improve the browser. But by that time, it was too late. The iPhone had hit the market with a Web browser that worked, making the BlackBerry’s browser look that much more antiquated.

So while the iPhone captured the market by becoming a mobile computer, the BlackBerry became a niche product with limited functionality – something that it is still struggling to overcome.

….but BBM Delights

What’s ironic is that while the BlackBerry’s browser sucked, it had a service, BBM, that delighted users, and, in many respects, has become the feature that has kept the BlackBerry relevant and popular.

Unless a miracle happens, RIM as we know it is cooked. As much as it would be terrible to see Canada lose yet another flagship high-tech company, it seems like a matter of time before RIM is sold. Then, we can start to scrutinize what went wrong, and then we’ll discover it was the browser that proved to be RIM’s Achilles Heel.

Putting aside speculation about who may want to acquire RIM in the wake of Google’s $12.5-billion plan to purchase of Motorola Mobility, the fact remains the Canadian government needs to be pro-active to protect and bolster RIM’s status as a world-class technology company.

Whatever tools at the federal government’s disposal should be used to make sure RIM stays vibrant as an independent company or division of another company with a strong Canadian presence.

As much as I’m not a big believer in government intervention economically, RIM is a special situation because it plays a crucial role within the Canadian economy – not only as a large employer but a company that spins off many start-ups by ex-RIM employees who want to use their expertise and wealth.

If the Canadian government, however, decides not to pro-actively help RIM, it risks having another Nortel on its hands. This is not to suggest RIM is going to seek bankruptcy protection but it may need the government’s help.

For those of you with short memories, Nortel was allowed to disintegrate and be sold off in pieces while the Canadian government did squat other than make some noise about reviewing a few of the deals, which was mostly about political optics.

There was a role for the government to play to keep Nortel alive, even if meant transforming it into a smaller, more focused company. If something had been done to help Nortel come out of bankruptcy protection, Canada would still have a high-tech leader that would employ thousands of people and have a kick-ass patent portfolio.

Instead, Nortel was allowed to die, punctuated by the $4.5-billion sale of its patent portfolio. It was an embarrassing end to a company that had been a global technology leader.

With Nortel’s demise fresh in the federal government’s mind, it should be wise for Ottawa to be pro-active, creative and engaged to keep RIM alive and kicking.

With this lesson front and centre, the worse thing RIM could do in face the wake of many challenges is wave the white flag. There is no doubt RIM is struggling given pressure from the iPhone and Android, as well as the weak-ass, half-baked PlayBook that has failed to create even a small ripple in the tablet market.

But the answer for RIM is not to surrender or take major steps backward but to battle on. One truth about the high-tech market is the landscape can turn on a dime. One minute, you’re the star of the show; the next you’re forgotten. Many people forget, for example, that Apple nearly crumbled before Steve Jobs returned to orchestrate its miraculous comeback.

This is not to suggest RIM will enjoy a similar rebound but it would be a mistake to assume that just because RIM is currently struggling, there is nowhere else to go other than downhill.

That said, RIM needs to pull the trigger on some important moves over the next year to avoid becoming irrelevant.

1. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie should lead the business but not operate it. While there has been calls to appoint an independent chairman, another more significant and bold move would be appointing a new CEO to replace Laziridis and Balsillie. This would be a major move given RIM is their baby but at some point every founder has to step back to allow fresh blood into the mix.

2. The BlackBerry doesn’t have to reinvented or overhauled but it does need to become more of a Swiss Army knife that does a variety of things well rather than an e-mail client/phone device. At the very least, the BlackBerry needs a fantastic Web browser, as well as user-friendly and accessible video and music players. At the same time, BlackBerry World needs to have a strong portfolio but doesn’t need 100,000 apps to be successful.

3. RIM shouuld not only push ahead with the new QNX operating system but start to educate the marketplace on why it will a big leap forward, and how it has the potential to not only bolster the BlackBerry but also wireless devices as well.

4. RIM has to completely overhaul its marketing efforts. It needs to take a completely fresh approach to the consumer market where its efforts have been as awkward as a teenager at a high school dance. RIM’s consumer marketing seems forced rather than playing on its strengths. It is like RIM has adopted a new personality that doesn’t work. The campaign for its BBM service, which the young’uns love, fails to hit the market because RIM isn’t effectively reaching out to the target audience in a natural way.

5. RIM needs to focus on opportunities in international markets but avoid being Friendster-ized. For those of you who remember, Friendster was the leading social media network before it was shoved aside by Facebook. While Friendster is still alive today, its only exists in a handful of Asian countries. While RIM is seeing strong international growth, North America is a big, important market so it needs to create the right devices, marketing plans and, as important, relationships with carriers to stay in the game.

Larkin argues he only needs 10 apps, mostly because the iPhone comes with many of the apps (e.g. Safari, photos, weather, Mail) he uses all the time. It’s a great point that talks to one of the dirty little secrets of the mobile world: most people only use a few apps but they really like the idea of having thousands of options.

It’s one of the reasons for the iPhone’s massive appeal, while the BlackBerry gets roundly criticized for the shortcomings of BlackBerry App World. Truth be told, BlackBerry App World likely has most of the apps people really need but it gets pounded for not offering thousands of more options.

It’s probably not unlike going to Denny’s, which features a menu with dozens of choices. I suspect the majority of people eat a small number of items, which lets Denny’s offer multiple options with the knowledge that many of them will not be selected.

In the technology world, however, perception is often reality. Consumers like the idea of choice, options and features even though they many not use many of them. It’s the same reason why consumers upgrade devices, hardware and software when what they have is perfectly good.

When it comes to my personal use of apps on my iPhone, most of my time is sucked up by TweetBot, Safari and the camera. Once in awhile, I’ll use Yelp, Dialvetica, Tweeb, AroundMe, Tumblr and Angry Birds. In total, that’s nine apps so I’m clearly in the same camp as Larkin. That said, there are 81 apps on my iPhone, which means most of them collect a lot of digital dust.

So how many apps do you really use or need? And if you had to pay for apps, how many would you have on your device?