Balsillie and Lazaridis to receive nearly $12 million in parting gifts

I would spend the money to pay rappers to put blackberry in their songs so the kids think its cool again

I think that will make it up for the BBC interview lol

Invest in BB10.

I would retire!!!

On a side note, I would have expected CrackBerry to report on the launch of Pacemaker as it's a major app to be launching *first* on PlayBook!

$12M for a job well-done!

Nobody deserves a $10 million dollar salary or million dollar send-offs. This company is in jeopardy and I wish somebody would take responsibility for that. I can certainly see why they're smiling. They are definitely getting the last laugh. I'm hoping for RIM to succeed, but with millions going out the door this way, it's kind of a sad comment on the state of affairs. Job Well Done? In the US, hardly anyone even talks about Blackberry anymore. I dread the idea of getting a different phone than a Blackberry in November when my contract is up, but it sure looks like a sinking ship down here.

I'd lock at least half of it in relatively safe investments. 12 Million isn't worth as much as it used to be, and I'd want to put most away to slowly use over the course of my lifetime.

Both of these guys deserve it. including Jim B. These guys were brilliant at what they done for the BlackBerry brand, no matter how bad the company of a situation this company is in at the present moment. Without these two brilliant minds we wouldn't have smartphones today or even mobile email.

$12 million is a lot of FTEs

save the most and move to a nice island with beach and lot of sun after a year till THE END ;)

i would build a 1 million dollar phone called the blackberry nasa and only build 11 of them.

Wonder if they will buy more RIMM?

Pffff, well I hope it makes the subordinates work harder, knowing that the boss gets a shitload of money....

I'd pay netflix, hulu and skype what they want to get the apps on the playbook and save rim...

I would re-invest it in RIMM and QNX :D

Two chicks at the same time.

I'd invest half in RIM and half in Apple. ;-)

What would I do with $ 12 mio... Well I would buy RIM and with the remaining $ 10 mio I would retire.

Lazaridis deserves everything he got. Balsillie on the other hand...

No wonder critics are cynical of executive compensation. Management thinks it deserves professional sports size salaries. Management looks after themselves first and foremost, and self-interest & self-aggrandizement has replaced shareholder interests.

RIMM's market cap is down over 12 Billion in one year.

http://ycharts.com/companies/RIMM/market_cap

So what's a few million amongst corporate cronies. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Something is rotten in the state of Waterloo."

I'm sure the 6000 current employees about to get axed are pleased to hear this news.

Way to take the life boats while the ship you scuttled is sinking.

I would purchase shares of Samsung... ;-)

I bet Thorsten is motivated for RIM to succeed with a $10 million annual salary on the line.

Start a Revolution against Corrupt Corporate CEO's, Corrupt Politicians, and Bankers in general.

That is the least they could do for a man that had the vision to bring real-time, secure coms to the world.
From his past record, I gather Mike will probably donate it to education.

I'm glad Throsten Heins is in place but Mike made BlackBerry a reality. Thorten gets the whole "camera matters" thing. He gets that it does not just have to be the most practical device but also packed with rich desirable features.

I'd buy APPL, GOOG, and NOK (in hopes of an acquisition).

For those few saying they deserve it for what they did in building the company, they have already been compensated for that with the value of shares that they both own, this is simply an undeserved gift that the company can ill-afford to be paying at this time and at the very least they should defer it until next year.

$0.5m for me, $11.3m to charitable causes

Sounds very sensible.

They probably deserve that money since BlackBerry has come soo far!

But I would spend the money on BlackBerry EVERYTHING! I would buy every possible accessory and BB phone just to have them! And just switch off using all of them! And then I would invest in RIM so they could become even MORE successful 8)

How pathetic!

Say the average salary is $50,000. This could have saved 240 positions.

They should have gotten a kick in the nuts.

Got the Proxy Vote information today. Voted for all the Board nominations except Lazaridis. I'm not fan of Golden Parachutes either. Voted against the Board compensation too.

Anyone else seeing an odd coincidence of a pitchfork in the picture. Almost like Grant Wood's American Gothic, except this is Canadian. The image makes a good footnote on their leaving.

If I was getting the 12 million, and had as much money as these guys already do, I would be giving the money to those 6000 workers RiM is going to cut over the next several months. Those workers in the trenches deserve it more than these two.

I would spend it!

I would pay off my college tuition, buy my first house, use some to put towards costly adoptions for needy kids, and save the rest!

I would invest it into an investment savings account at Ing Direct.

This way, I would have enough for the long future, 33 years down the road from now.

That's just sad and pathetic !!!! BB is going down hill, people getting laid off and loosing their jobs and these guys are getting $12 million ??? That goes to tell you why Rim is in the position that it is !!

Whatever, $12 million is drop in the bucket for a company like RIM. I just hope they figure out a way to bring BlackBerry back to being a desirable brand. BB 10 looks great, I think the market has enough room for a third major player after Apple and Samsung. People have been giving these guys a hard time lately, not wholly unreasonable, but I think only time will tell if the problems RIM is having now is just temporary, which I certainly hope so.

That's a strategy of all the higher ups taking care of them self prior to a company hitting belly up, or they get bought out