Breaking: RIM’s Mike Lazaridis & Jim Balsillie to be Replaced by Thorsten Heins as CEO (u)

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RIM isn’t doing good, and it hasn’t been doing good for quite a while now. Whether it’s smartphones or tablets, the Canadian company can’t really fight the iPhone or the plethora of Android smartphones out there, not to mention that its own tablet, while pretty interesting in theory, has not made an impression with consumers.

Who can be blamed for the downfall of the company? Its leadership, naturally! The guys who lacked the vision to take the BlackBerry devices to the next level. Sure, RIM announced a few months ago the BBX OS, a QNX-based new mobile operating system – currently known as BlackBerry 10 – but the first mobile devices to run the new OS will only be launched at some point later this year. Meanwhile Apple, and various Android smartphone makers, are selling plenty of iOS and Android devices, effectively crushing RIM’s market share. And the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is still failing to get enough buyers, even at cheaper price points.

Therefore, I’m not surprised to hear that RIM’s well-known co-CEOs and co-Chairmen, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie decided to step down and let someone else try to get RIM back in the game. Or they were fired. Nonetheless, what’s important to note is that since Saturday the Canadian giant has a new CEO. His name is Thorsten Heins, “a former Siemens executive who has risen steadily through RIM’s upper management ranks since joining the Canadian company in late 2007.”

That’s probably exactly what RIM needs, fresh blood to reorganize the company. Not to mention that it’s probably good news to see RIM being lead by one CEO, although others could argue that the Lazaridis-Balsillie partnership worked out just fine for the most part of their joint 20-year term atop the company. Joining Heins we find Barbara Stymiest, “who once headed the Toronto Stock Exchange,” and who will now take the role of chairman of the company:

“There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now,” Lazaridis said in a hastily arranged interview at RIM’s Waterloo headquarters, flanked by Balsillie and Heins and with Stymiest joining via telephone.

The former co-CEOs will continue to sit in board meetings, with Lazaridis reportedly taking an active role as vice-chair and head of the innovation committee. And let’s hope that we’ll see more innovation from RIM in the following years under new leadership. Unless Heins mission will actually be to sell RIM to the highest bidder, a measure his predecessors have apparently objected thus far.

Let’s hear it from BlackBerry device owners, are you going to continue to buy new RIM devices or are you moving to iOS, Android or Windows Phone?

Update: RIM just uploaded a video to its YouTube channel to introduce the new CEO to the world: