黑莓衰败的五大教训

    移动技术领域竞争异常惨烈，只有不断创新才能立于不败之地。所以移动品牌的兴衰起伏也都在弹指之间。然而，RIM（Research-in-Motion）在今年的衰败显得格外突然和惨痛。

    自今年2月以来，RIM的股价已经下跌超过50%，而过去18个月，其在美国智能手机市场的份额也从34%下滑至24%。黑莓曾经是最受消费者青睐的手机，但苹果（Apple）iPhone和谷歌（Google）Android手机的出现改变了这一切。与苹果和谷歌竞争原本就并非易事，更何况RIM的管理层在今年还铸下大错，导致RIM由下滑转变为全面崩溃。RIM的衰败可谓企业危机管理的典型反面教材，我们可以从中得到以下5点教训：

    不要做出无法兑现的承诺。4月28日，RIM表示，鉴于新款黑莓产品将在今年晚些时候上市，公司预计本财年每股收益将达到7.5美元。一些分析师对RIM的乐观预期提出质疑，他们预计RIM的每股收益可能不到6美元。最后果然如此，在RIM公布第一季度业绩后，该公司不得不将全年每股预期收益下调至5.25美元到6美元之间。

    原因何在？RIM之所以提出了如此之高的预期，是因为非常看好正在开发的项目，但最后这些项目却不能如期发布。升级版黑莓Torch和Storm要等到夏末才能上市，比预期的时间推迟了很多。在现在这个年代，智能手机推迟发布就等于胎死腹中。受这一消息影响，RIM的股价下跌了27%，创下近5年以来的最低点。

    不要推出半成品。RIM的智能手机推迟发布，而其平板电脑Playbook又操之过急。不少评测者对RIM开发中的Playbook进行了评测，对其大为褒奖。不过在Playbook正式推出后，大家反响不一。最令人不安的是，正式版Playbook竟然没有电子邮件服务，而这恰恰是黑莓智能手机的杀手锏。结果，Playbook虽然初期销售强劲，但随后很快下滑。Playbook给大家的感觉好像是RIM为了对抗iPad，仓促推出了一款半成品。

    招徕开发者，不要疏远他们。在今天，只有应用程序开发者愿意为之工作的移动平台才是好平台。即使在惠普（HP）收购Palm之前，WebOS也是一款不错的操作系统，但它并没能吸引到足够的开发者。即使RIM在企业领域实力很强，但开发者们还是纷纷撤离，转投iOS和Android的怀抱。为了扭转这一局面，RIM宣布将支持Android应用程序，但这可能将适得其反。有迹象显示，此举已导致开发者们纷纷逃离Playbook所搭载的RIM全新QNX平台。

    不要攻击批评者，要从善如流。科技新闻博客Boy Genius Report发布了一篇经过证实的来自RIM管理层的匿名“公开信”，RIM随后也通过匿名方式在博客上予以回应。回应信件是对的，不过RIM采取的处理方式并不恰当。这封公开信提出了不少切合实际的看法，尽管RIM的管理层难以接受：承认苹果正在“独步”智能手机市场；专注于个人消费者而非运营商；考虑更换一名“具有创新思维、经验丰富”的首席执行官。

    RIM的回应堪称近来最糟糕的公关行为之一。RIM发表声明，草率地全盘否定了公开信的建议。（“RIM完全清楚目前的形势，我们正在积极应对公司所面临的机遇和挑战。”）更差劲的是，RIM竟然还展开人身攻击，指责作者“假冒身份”、“怀着不可告人的目的”。这一举动最后招致RIM前任和现任员工的强烈批评。

    保持缄默可能是更好的回应：RIM的举动使其显得高傲自大，甚至不识时务。

    不要把忠诚当成理所当然。这条教训所有企业都应铭记在心。就在几年前，RIM还在消费者、员工和投资者中建立了令人钦羡的忠诚度。而且RIM也有机会赢得开发者的信赖。不过RIM在过去几个月的所作所为将这一切销蚀殆尽。

    这种忠诚原本可使RIM迅速而轻松地实现转型，不过RIM却把它挥霍一空。谁也不知道这家公司究竟从中获得了什么好处。

    译者：项航

    In the hyper-competitive world of mobile technology, you're only as good as your latest innovations. So brands rise and fall with surprising speed. But even by those accelerated standards, the fall of Research-in-Motion (RIMM) this year has been sudden and brutal.

    RIM's stock has fallen more than 50% since February, and its share of the U.S. smartphone market has dropped to 24% from 34% in the past 18 months. The Blackberry used to be the most coveted mobile phone until the arrival of the Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and phones powered by Google's (GOOG) Android software. Competing with those companies is hard enough, but RIM's management has made several serious missteps this year that have turned its decline into a full-on corporate meltdown. It's a case study in how not to handle a crisis, starting with these five lessons.

    Don't make promises you can't keep. On April 28, RIM said it expected to earn a net profit of $7.50 a share in its current fiscal year, citing new Blackberry products that would arrive later in the year. Some analysts questioned this bullish guidance, estimating an EPS figure closer to $6. And sure enough, when RIM announced its first-quarter earnings, it revised its guidance down to a range between $5.25 a share and $6 a share.

    What happened? RIM pinned its bullish hopes on Blackberry projects in had in the works, but then had to delay their releases. Upgrades to the Blackberry Torch and Storm models will come in late summer, much later than expected. In 2011, a delayed smartphone is a smartphone that's dead in the water. On the news, RIM's stock fell 27% to its lowest point in nearly five years.

    Don't release half-baked products either. The smartphone delays coincided with a bumpy release of RIM's tablet, the Playbook. Reviewers who tested the Playbook in development had a lot of early praise for it. But once it was released, the reviews turned mixed. Most worrisome, the Playbook launched without the email service that makes its smartphones so attractive to many users. As a result, initial sales started strong and fell off quickly. The Playbook ended up feeling like it had been rushed to market to compete with the iPad.

    It's better to court developers than to alienate them. At the end of the day, a mobile platform is only as good as the developers writing for it. Even before HP (HPQ) bought Palm, webOS was a fine operating system, but it failed to draw a critical mass of developers. Despite RIM's strength in the enterprise market, developers have been fleeing its platform for iOS and Android. RIM tried to remedy this by announcing it would support Android apps, but this may be backfiring. There are signs that this move is driving developers away from RIM's new QNX platform, which powers the Playbook.

    Don't attack the messenger. And don't take the message personally. After the tech-news site Boy Genius Report printed an anymous but verified "open-letter" by a RIM executive, the company replied with its own anonymous blog post. RIM was right to respond to the letter, but so wrong in it its handling of it. The open letter had sensible ideas, even if they were hard for RIM's leadership to swallow: Admit that Apple is "nailing" smartphones, focus on consumers and not carriers and consider a "fresh-thinking, experienced" CEO.

    RIM's reply was one of the most hamfisted PR moves in recent memory. It blithely dismissed the open-letter's suggestions with a declaration of denial. ("RIM is fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company's challenges and its opportunities.") Even worse, it took some ad-hominem swipes, suggesting the author was "fake" or had "ulterior motivations." That inspired a dozen other impassioned criticisms from current and former RIM employees.

    Dead air would have been a better response: RIM ended up looking arrogant and even more out of touch.

    Don't take loyalty for granted. This is the lesson underscoring all the others. Only a couple of years ago, RIM had built up an enviable degree of loyalty among consumers, employees and investors. It was positioned to win over developers as well. But its moves in the past several months are eroding all of that good will.

    All that loyalty could have made a turnaround quick and painless. Instead it's frittering that good will away. And it's not really clear what the company is getting in return.