“Why is it that people don’t appreciate our profits? Why is it that people don’t appreciate our growth? Why is it that people don’t appreciate the fact that we spent the last four years going global? Why is it that people don’t appreciate that we have 500 carriers in 170 countries with products in almost 30 languages?”
He wrapped up with “I don’t fully understand why there’s this negative sentiment, and I just don’t have the time to battle it. Because in the end, what I’ve learned is you’ve just got to prove it over and over and over.”
Most true journalists will go on to say that CEOs shouldn’t exhibit this level of anger or frustration. Analysts will quote the, “never let ’em see you sweat” a few times and a few more will go on to say:
During its last fiscal year, the company, which is based here, shipped a record 52.3 million phones — a 43 percent increase over the previous year — and its fourth-quarter income of $924 million exceeded forecasts.
adding
Some analysts suggest that R.I.M. has lost its momentum and may now be heading downward, much like Palm, which in better days was expected to rub out the then-fledgling R.I.M. Current BlackBerrys are hobbled with an aging operating system, and the company’s market growth last year seems less impressive when contrasted with Apple’s 93 percent rise in iPhone shipments.
If you’re the type of person who ONLY reads Apple-centric blogs, you’ll hear things like, “sounds like someone who is unfit for running RIM. The Playbook isn’t even shipping and your app store has no apps and your design hasn’t changed in years and your only Apple competitor in mobile phones, the Torch is doing xx a year in sales less than Apple.
Look, negative sentiment is just that. It’s people making claims of how you will do going forward based on the market and what you have in the pipeline. I’m siding with RIM here. No matter how crazy it was to say this publicly, I agree. We beat up on anyone that’s not Apple way too often and we’ve been doing it for 20 years, even when Apple was selling 200,000 Macs a quarter, we were doing it and when iPhone was 6 months from ever going on-sale we were calling the death of Palm and Windows Mobile. Now that we’re on top, it’s even worse. The guy has a lot of problems to fix, but RIM is still in a good place and you can call me crazy if you want.