RIM’s Balsillie and Lazaridis Step Aside ⇥

Ian Austen, for the New York Times:

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who made the BlackBerry a leading business tool but then presided over its precipitous decline, said they would step down on Monday as co-chairmen and co-chief executives of Research in Motion.

Probably too little, and definitely much too late.

The company named Thorsten Heins, currently one of RIM’s two chief operating officers, as chief executive. He pledged during an interview on Sunday to follow the strategy Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis set in place.

That’s precisely the wrong approach.