Let's explore the problem with RIM and what a successful strategy might look like. They are actually onto something--they just got it completely wrong.

It is said that if you are a screwdriver company you'll look at every problem as if it is a screw. RIM, at its heart, is an IT company in a consumer-driven world, which is a formula for obsolescence. So the problem is that RIM, which has a product once so desirable it was called the " ," has lost its customer base.

I covered RIM's initial success closely, and I find it ironic that IT didn't drive the company into the market, but rather it was the executives who found the early two-way pagers irreplaceable that RIM targeted. In short, RIM started out, much like Microsoft did, as a user-focused company and then lost its way.