Archive for May, 2010

The Globe and Mail is running audio and print excerpts from the five books nominated for the National Business Book Award. My book about Manulife, published last year, is among them. If you want to hear my dulcet tones, here’s the link:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/rod-mcqueen-how-dominic-dalessandro-built-a-global-giant-and-fought-to-save-it/article1585077/

On a visit to Michigan during this Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., I visited Borders on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham. I know, I know, I recently said I would not be going into bookstores to check on stock, but hey, this is the first book I’ve ever written that’s been available in the U.S.

Indeed, they had copies of my latest book, BlackBerry. I spoke to a clerk and offered to autograph stock. She produced a Sharpie for me to use but, before I began, I asked:  ”Don’t you want to check the author photo to make sure I am who I say I am?” She looked at me and said: “I don’t think anyone has ever come in here claiming to be an author he wasn’t just to sign books.” I guess on the Richter scale of frauds, this one does not rank.

Later, as I looked around, I realized that everyone in the Bush administration has a book out or has one on the way even though they just left the White House less than 18 months ago. Laura Bush’s book is available and the memoir by George W. Bush is already being publicized with posters even though it won’t be in stores until November 9. Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff to Bush, had recently visited this store to autograph his new book, Courage and Consequence.

I bought the Rove book. That’s the real problem with going into bookstores looking for your book. It’s an expensive pastime.

An interview by Allan Gregg about my new book, BlackBerry, runs on TvOntario a week from today, Friday June 4, at 10 p.m. Gregg always does a great job because he not only reads the book but also thinks about his questions in advance. Moreover, he’s one of the few members of the media who does a 30-minute interview, thus offering an author the opportunity to talk about some of the themes in the book rather than be limited to two or three brief answers and one anecdote.

There’s a preview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzPjPWFIs1E

In the olden days, when their majesties came to call, households spent months in preparation for the royal visit. Fatted calves were killed and entire wings of the mansion were revamped. In some instances, spa towns such as Royal Tunbridge Wells were renamed in their honor.

Well, get ready Royal Waterloo. On July 5, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will be touring the production facilities at Research In Motion as part of their nine-day visit to Canada. The modern manufacturing site features “pick-and-place” robotics machines worth $750,000 apiece for the initial assembly but every BlackBerry is finished by hand in a series of steps by individual employees who also calibrate and test each device. The whole process takes two hours. A plant tour guided by co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie has been known to take that long although it’s unlikely the Queen has that much time available in an already jam-packed day.

Might be a good day to launch a new product, too. The Queen could use a new smartphone. Her hosts are likely getting a special edition ready along with the fatted calf.

There’s been a lot of blather of late among bloggers who claim that Research In Motion is working on a tablet to compete with the iPad. The source is said to be an insider; the code name for the device is Cobalt.

I think this is all just so much bunkum. But first, two caveats. One, I haven’t interviewed anyone at RIM for six months since my book was finalized. Two, they never revealed anything to me about any new device until the official release. Still, I have a sense of the place in general and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in particular. Here are my thoughts, buttressed with some quotes from Mike that he gave to me during my four years of research.

First, an inside source blabbing about a product a year away from launch seems unlikely. Development teams at RIM are small and sworn to secrecy.

Moreover, Mike likes the BlackBerry and believes it offers plenty of scope. “Just like the big computer mainframe gave way to the mini, and the mini gave way to the micro, and the micro fought it out with the laptop, there is a chance that BlackBerry may become sophisticated enough within the next few years that you’ll never go back to your laptop,” he told me.

“There is a chance that these handheld, wirelessly connected, highly efficient devices that are always on, always collecting data, always interacting with the entire information pool through the Internet, will replace your laptop. PCs will become media systems, which will be part of your big screen, but BlackBerry will be the core of everything, the central nervous system of what’s going on. It will be managing everything from your handheld device, because that’s where your customization is. The bulk of the media is either in a central store somewhere or at your cable or satellite provider,” said Lazaridis.

Finally, although RIM does have a touchscreen product in Storm, Mike’s preference has always been for a keyboard ever since he saw the prototype of the Palm Pilot eons ago. “For me, it was all about keyboards at the time because I could type very fast, very accurately, without ever looking at the keyboard. With a tactile system that’s properly designed, within days your body memorizes where all the keys are without you having to look at them. So [Palm founder] Jeff [Hawkins] went off and did touch screens. I went off and tried to develop something with a keyboard.”

I’m proud to announce that “Manulife: How Dominic D’Alessandro Built a Global Giant and Fought to Save It” has been shortlisted for the National Business Book Award. I’ve already won an NBBA in 1997 for “Who Killed Confederation Life?” so won’t win for Manulife because no author has ever won twice in the award’s 25-year history.

I am, however, in excellent company with the other nominees of books published in 2009: journalist John DeMont on coal, economist Wendy Dobson on the Asian economy, the memoirs of Buzz Hargrove and former CIBC economist Jeff Rubin on oil.

The award, which comes with a $20,000 prize donated by sponsors PricewaterhouseCoopers and BMO Financial Group, will be presented on June 9.

BTW, Manulife is now available as an e-book on Kobo.

In one of the many courageous moves by RIM on the road to success, in 1994 Mike Lazaridis called together all 20 employees – yes, that’s right, just 20 employees – to announce the company was going to focus on the wireless business. That meant giving up lucrative software contract work and other sure revenue-generators for a wireless world of risk.

Lazaridis told the employees he was aiming high: the top five. “We called it the MENS Club – Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens,” said Lazaridis. Along the way Samsung replaced Siemens, but the letters remained the same. “Our goal was to become the fifth letter.”

Well, according to figures just released by the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, RIM has arrived. As of the first quarter of 2010 RIM has replaced Motorola and is tied with Sony Ericsson for number four. As recently as 2004 Motorola was in second place. Siemens slipped off the list in 2005.

The new top five are Nokia, Samsung, LG Electronics, RIM and Sony Ericsson. The MENS Club moniker has become NSLRS. Which could stand for No Sales Like Rising Sales.