Top Digital Marketing Exec Leaves RIM for Samsung
Mr. Wallace, RIM’s top digital marketer, is defecting to Samsung Mobile, where he’ll be VP-strategic marketing for the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter. While Mr. Wallace oversaw all things digital at RIM as VP-digital marketing and media, his new role will also encompass offline media, creative and branding.
The move means handling marketing for a bigger manufacturer with, frankly, more momentum. Samsung is the No. 1 mobile handset manufacturer in the U.S. with more than 25% market share in April, according to ComScore. RIM is No. 5 and reported lower than expected quarterly sales and revenue yesterday.
People always like to opine about companies that ‘need to become relevant again’. It was said of Apple in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and some say it of Microsoft even today. But unarguably, RIM is suffering from this condition badly, as it’s watching its messaging/email platform be eviscerated by full-on mobile computing platforms like iOS and Android. Toss atop that fire faltering Playbook sales (as well as some defective first-batch units) and QNX’s delay, which is holding up the company’s anticipated-but-not-delivered next-gen mobile operating system, and there’s very little good news going on for RIM right now.
Where’s the innovation? I said a long time ago that if RIM was to face its candle into the wind of the iPhone’s introduction, it needed more than messaging and tactile keyboards. I know projects are being ‘accelerated‘, but we need RIM to be creative again, not push copycat (by definition, not as good as) products to the market quicker. They’ll never beat Apple at being Apple and Android has the best web/web service game going.
RIM certainly isn’t full of a bunch of dummies. Where’s the leadership?
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