Former Research In Motion co-CEO and co-Chairman Mike Lazaridis said in a recent interview that he had been planning to step down from his role at the helm of the company for several years. While speaking with The Record, Lazaridis confessed that he had been planning to relinquish his co-CEO role for several years leading up to January 22nd when RIM announced that Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie were stepping down. Lazaridis said in the interview that he had been grooming new CEO Thorsten Heins for the CE...

Investors had been clamoring for Research In Motion co-founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis to relinquish their co-CEO and co-chairman roles, and the company finally announced this past Sunday that Balsillie and Lazaridis were out, replaced by new chairperson of the board Barbara Stymiest and new chief executive officer Thorsten Heins. RIM’s stock plunged more than 13% when Heins introduced himself as the company’s new CEO, due in large part to a video interview during which he essentially ...

After months of investors unrest, Research In Motion on Sunday announced that Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were stepping down from their roles as co-CEO and co-Chairmen. Barbara Stymiest was named RIM’s new chairperson of the board, in line with rumors, and former Ericsson executive Thorsten Heins was named president and CEO. Heins and Stymiest hosted a conference call Monday morning, with Heins leading the show, and the company took its first steps in a long climb toward regaining shareholder conf...

Bad products, horrible software and no cohesive vision have seemingly turned Research In Motion into a company without motion at this point. Throw in a huge delay before BlackBerry 10 smartphones start shipping, and it’s clear why people are losing, or have lost, faith in a company that played a tremendous role in making the smartphone industry what it is today. Thanks to one of our most trusted sources, BGR now has new information on what’s going on inside Research In Motion, and the picture it p...

We recently sat down with Sony Ericsson President of North America Paul Hamnett to discuss the company’s future as a wholly-owned division of Sony Corporation, its upcoming smartphones and strategy pertaining to the U.S. market, Sony Electronics’ “four screen” opportunity, and much more. Check out the full video interview after the break. (more…)

We had a chance to sit down with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop a few weeks ago in New York City to get a the skinny on Nokia’s strategy straight from the top. We covered the company’s upcoming push (and hopefully valiant return) in the United States, Nokia’s latest smartphones, potential new Nokia tablets and of course the company’s new Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 Windows Phones. Catch the full video interview after the break. (more…)

We had a chance to spend some time with AT&T Vice President of Marketing, Mike Woodward, a little while back to talk about AT&T’s first 4G LTE smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and HTC Vivid, in addition to 4G LTE in general, the company’s stance on Android, iOS, and more. Catch the interview after the break! (more…)

Verizon Wireless on Friday released a class-leading smartphone that combines two of the biggest cell phone brands of the past decade into a single device. Verizon’s DROID line of smartphones played a huge role in making Android the global juggernaut it is today, and Motorola’s RAZR turned the wireless industry on its head in 2004, showing consumers that a cell phone can be both beautiful and functional. The decision to merge these brands into one single powerhouse was not made lightly, we can assu...

BGR recently caught up with Fred Maxik, Chief Technology Officer of Lighting Science Group, to talk about what the company is doing in the lighting industry. Not many consumers are familiar with Lighting Science Group yet, though some might remember the company from last year’s Google I/O conference as it was the first partner Google teamed up with for its Android @ Home initiative. What really interests me about Lighting Science Group is the company’s vision on the future of light, and what it is...

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph sat down with Nokia product boss Jo Harlow during the Nokia World conference this week to get her take on the Finnish vendor’s first two Windows Phones, the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800. Rudolph and Harlow had a great chat, but the meat of the interview certainly hits toward the end. When asked why a consumer would buy Nokia’s new high-end smartphone over the competition, Harlow didn’t mince words. “Yeah, the iPhone is simple to use. IPhone has a beautiful...

Apple co-Founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs vowed to devote his life and all of Apple’s cash to destroying Google’s Android operating system, which he believed to be an outright ripoff of Apple’s iPhone platform. Pulling quotes from an advance copy of Steve Jobs’s authorized biography by Walter Isaacson, The Associated Press reports that Jobs was furious in January 2010 when HTC launched a phone that appeared to copy many key features from the iPhone. Read on for more. (mor...

We recently caught up with George Martin, software product manager for Texas Instruments’ wireless business unit, to talk about the company’s recent big wins with Android, TI’s OMAP 5 platform, working with Microsoft on Windows 8 and more. As the mobile landscape continues to evolve at a much faster pace than the computer industry, there’s nothing more important than the processors that enable the amazing functionality in these devices. Where is one of the industry’s top chip mak...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has never been one to mince words, and the executive shared a few choice thoughts on Google’s Android platform while speaking at the Web 2.0 conference on Tuesday. “You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone, but I think you do to use an Android phone,” Ballmer told Federated Media founder John Battelle during an interview on stage. He continued, “It is very hard to be excited, for me, about the Android phones.” Despite the...

Acer founder Stan Shih thinks Apple’s days at the top are numbered, and Google’s Android operating system will be the victor in the industry’s heated mobile platform wars. In an interview with Chinese-language Taiwan newspaper United Daily News as reported by Taiwan Economic News, Shih stated that Android is the world’s most popular mobile operating system by volume and it will “outdo” Apple’s iOS in the near future. In particular, Shih sees Google’s alliance ...