It has been a year and a half since the developer of Gist a contact manager application for various platforms, has joined Research In Motion (RIM) the maker of Blackberry to head its Blackberry Messenger and Contacts services. These two are the company’s most treasured services as the Blackberry device virtually runs on them. T.A. McCann joined Blackberry around two years ago and now his job is to ensure that the Blackberry devices fit in well with existing social networks that are popular with users.
The quick prospering of McCann’s career at Blackberry shows the method the CEO Thornsten Heins is using to run RIM, which is quite a drastic change from what the company had a while ago. The new blood joining the company were not witnesses to the company coming down to the level it is at now from being one of the most influential and revolutionary smartphone manufacturing companies ever. Mr. McCann is also of the opinion that people such as himself being put in positions of leadership is a significant change in the company’s strategy.
McCann is among the executives who have recently joined RIM from their startups. He was running a website called Gist.com that is set to close on September 15th, and this marks a move by RIM to ensure that it holds all the expertise within its premises. McCann also had the experience of working at capital venture firms such as Vulcan Capital and Polaris Venture Partners along with the added bonus of being at the Exchange Server Group in Microsoft. The other executives like McCann come from companies as diverse as Verizon, Sony and a startup called Light Squared that tried to work with 4G technology but had to close shop because of political pressure.
The reason for appointing executives like McCann as leaders of the critical parts of the company is perhaps to change the outlook RIM has. From being a conventional organization, Heins is looking to drive into it an entrepreneurial approach and the people are the most important factors there. The key aspect right now appears to be integrating social networks into the Blackberry devices and if it all goes well the Blackberry 10 devices are likely going to be very efficient in that respect. RIMs future rests on the success of the devices and the extent to which it can license the platform.
