商界超胆侠程守宗能拯救黑莓吗

    作为应对策略，程守宗将业务扩展至当时新兴的细分领域，即甲骨文这类巨头不会激烈争抢的数据库市场地带。例如，他创建了一个部门，致力于开发可以在笔记本电脑上运行的数据库软件，那时正值便携式电脑流行期间。他还让Sybase专注金融交易、保险和政府等领域，将零售和制造业这类大型市场让给竞争对手。

    程守宗所采取的其他措施后来被证实颇具先见之明。他推动Sybase为手机等移动设备开发数据管理软件，而一些分析师曾认为这一市场对于Sybase来说过于边缘化，不值得开拓。他鼓励开发人员为Sybase的移动数据库开发了几百个移动应用。他还将客户服务这类服务搬到了网络上。

    接下来的10年中，Sybase默默地积累了在移动数据软件领域的专长。一开始，怀疑人士是正确的：移动市场的增长较为缓慢。这家公司的股价几年内一直停留在20-30美元之间。2009年，随着智能手机开始成为消费者和企业员工的主流之选，Sybase股价翻了一倍多，飙升到44美元。

    2010年5月，有意溢价收购各大企业的德国软件巨头SAP以每股65美元，即总价58亿美元的价格收购了Sybase。而仅在几天前，Sybase的股价还不到40美元。当时，程守宗说Sybase在为40亿手机打理着短信收发服务。

    程守宗将努力扭转黑莓的业务，但他说需要6个季度的时间。至于如何实现这一点，他在Sybase的战术或许能提供一些答案。在Sybase的任期将满时，程守宗于采访中表示，他迅速、大刀阔斧地削减了成本，尤其是业绩不佳部门的成本。他争分夺秒地组建了一支高管团队，其中一半是以前曾经共事过的内部人士，另一半是素未谋面、但却能带来新理念的外部人士。

    程守宗还与数百名Sybase客户见了面，向他们保证公司将继续为他们服务，并向他们解释了他的公司计划。之后，早期迹象表明，业务转型策略生效了。一年后，Sybase扭亏为盈。2000年，这家公司斩获了有史以来的最高利润。

    程守宗能让这种逆转在黑莓重现吗？有可能。人们也很难再推举一个更合适的人选来担此重任。程守宗对移动市场有着深刻的了解，且在捕捉形成气候之前的新兴趋势方面拥有有据可查的记录。他能讲中文、粤语以及其他亚洲语言，与那些智能手机需求不断攀升的国家有着很深的渊源。

    假如程守宗是扭转黑莓局势首席执行官的不二人选，那么唯一的问题在于，黑莓到底还有没有救。企业软件和消费设备是两头截然不同的猛兽。程守宗带领Sybase进入了移动数据库领域，用他的话来说，是退着进去的，因为当时已经是走投无路了。然而在智能手机领域，这种可供退着进入的细分市场并不多。

    如果黑莓复兴这一撩人的目标过于遥远，遥远到甚至连最有野心的超胆侠都难以企及的话，那么程守宗可能会多个心眼，效仿埃维尔•克尼维尔的做法，在他自己驾驶的那辆飞车上装一个结实的降落伞。（财富中文网）

    译者：翔

    Chen responded by expanding into what were then emerging niches, corners of the database market where giants like Oracle might not compete as aggressively. For example, he created a division focused on making database software that could run on laptops, just as portable computers were in demand. He also kept Sybase focused on sectors like financial trading, insurance, and governments, ceding larger markets like retail and manufacturing to rivals.

    Other moves proved to be remarkably prescient. Chen pushed Sybase into developing data management for mobile devices like cell phones, a market that some analysts once considered too peripheral for Sybase to bother with. He encouraged developers to write hundreds of apps for Sybase's mobile database. And he moved services like customer service onto the web.

    For the next decade, Sybase quietly built up its expertise in mobile database software. At first, the skeptics were right: The mobile market was slow to take off. The stock price traded between $20 a share and $30 a share for several years. Through 2009, Sybase shares more than doubled to $44 as smartphones began to go mainstream among consumers and corporate workers.

    In May 2010, SAP, a German software giant with a penchant for overpaying for companies, bought Sybase for $5,8 billion, or $65 a share. Only a few days earlier, Sybase was trading below $40 a share. At the time, Chen said that Sybase handled SMS traffic for 4 billion mobile phones.

    Chen's playbook at Sybase may give some insight to how he'll try to turn BlackBerry around in the six quarters he says he'll need. According to interviews near the end of his tenure at Sybase, Chen said he quickly and aggressively cut costs, especially in underperforming areas. He wasted no time in building an executive team with an equal mix of insiders, people he's worked with before, and outsiders he didn't know but who could bring in new ideas.

    Chen also met with hundreds of Sybase customers to assure them the company would be around and to explain his plan for the company, then followed with early evidence the turnaround was working. After a year, Sybase had turned red ink into black and in 2000 had its most profitable year to date.

    Can Chen repeat that turnaround at BlackBerry? Maybe. It's hard to think of a better candidate for the position. Chen has a deep understanding of the mobile market and a track record for spotting emerging trends before they shape markets. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and other Asian languages and has deep ties to countries where smartphone demand is growing.

    Assuming Chen is the right CEO to turn BlackBerry around, the only question remains whether BlackBerry can be saved at all. Enterprise software and consumer devices are two different beasts. Chen steered Sybase into mobile databases, he once said, by backing into it because there was little other choice. In smartphones, there aren't many niches to back into.

    If the tantalizing goal of a BlackBerry turnaround is just too far away for even the most ambitious daredevil to reach, then Chen might be smart to follow Evel Knievel example and secure a sturdy parachute to his own Skycycle.