No strangers to philanthropy, Mike Lazaridis and his wife Ophelia have a long record of donations to the University of Waterloo in their past and that generosity has one again been shown with Mike and Ophelia having announced their pledge of $21 million to science and mathematics faculties at the University of Waterloo:

“With their unparalleled generosity, the Lazaridis family enriches our capacity to attract exceptional individuals to join Waterloo as researchers and students,” said University of Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur. “The problems of the world will keep getting more complex and interconnected, and we want to be the first port of call for people looking to solve intractable problems.”

“History has shown us that a relatively small investment in fundamental research in physics and in science today can lead to huge innovation tomorrow. Given the current challenges in the world, the need for such innovation is greater now than ever,” said Mike Lazaridis, founder and vice chair of the board of Research in Motion. “I believe that the University of Waterloo, this province and this country can play a leadership role in this regard, and we are pleased to support it.”

In total, the Lazaridis family donations have exceeded $123 million, including $102.5 million to
establish the Institute for Quantum Computing in the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum Nano Centre, scheduled to open in the fall of 2012.

Source: University of Waterloo

In 2003, Mike Lazaridis and his wife Ophelia bought a 51-hectare bit of property on the shore of Lake Huron. The property was purchased for a paltry $800,000, formerly planned for a subdivision that had never been built. Five Canadian architectural firms competed in 2005 to win the contract to design the project, with Toronto-based Hariri Pontarini Architects coming out on top. Construction began in August of 2006, but progress has been slow as Mike hasn't had much time to devote to the project.

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As the new CEO of Research In Motion, Thorsten Heins has been doing a lot of interviews this week, including a couple with our own CrackBerry Kevin. He's not the only one sharing his thoughts; Mike Lazaridis, former co-CEO and one of the founders of RIM, sat down with The Record for an interview as well. He revealed that not only was this decision not made overnight, but in fact was planned out over the last four years, as Thorsten was groomed for the position. Even with all of the planning, Mike admitted that stepping aside after 27 years was an emotional event for him, as well as for his whole family. “Working so hard, with a 24-by-7 workload for so long, my biggest regret was not having enough time for my family. I need to correct that over the next few years. My kids have not gone to university yet, and so hopefully, I will correct that before they leave,” said Mike.

Mike feels very confident that Research In Motion is heading in the right direction. He believes so strongly in the company, the products, and the leadership of Thorsten that he has purchased an additional $50 million in company shares. “I am a major shareholder. This company has a strong balance sheet of $1.5 billion. It has strong sales of over $5 billion a quarter. This is a strong organization with a strong global brand, an iconic product and a strong future,” Lazaridis said. “I love the company. I love these employees. They are my extended family.”

Mike appears to be a big supporter and fan of Thorsten too. “I absolutely know he will take this company to new heights," Mike said, later adding “This was the perfect opportunity, and we knew that Thorsten and the executive team were ready” when speaking about RIM's plan for new product launches and the new platform coming this year. He also seems to be looking at the change realistically, noting that in every major company there comes a time when this (change of leadership) needs to happen. “Founder-based companies, if they are successful, they get to this point.”

Mike Lazaridis will remain at Research In Motion in a new role as vice-chair of the board and chair of the board's new Innovation Committee. He hopes to inspire and mentor future young entrepreneurs that will build the next big technology company in Canada. He encourages all Canadians to believe in their country, and never make the mistake of underestimating their abilities or the great institutions they have built.

“Don’t hesitate,” he says to the next generation of entrepreneurs. “If you fail, try again. You can change course, you can change paths, and you can change strategies, but never give up.”

Source: The Record

RIM has no doubt had a rough year but it wasn't rough enough the 200 people polled to vote them as the worst tech CEO's of 2011. That dubious glory has been handed to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings after single handedly increasing subscription prices and irritating customers further by starting an initiative to split up Netflix's DVD-by-mail and subscription services. Reed Hastings took 58% of the votes while Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis took 19% of the vote but we, of course are curious how BlackBerry owners feel about the votes.

Sure, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis have taken some missteps along the way but it's always easy to be an armchair critic and say how things should be run from afar. Are the missteps RIM had this year enough to have them ousted from the company they built -- remember, RIM has had a great run for the past 10 years and 2011 is just one year, one that was noted on many occasion by those in charge that it would be a year of transition and the road ahead would indeed be a bumpy one.

The other day TheRecord, a Kitchener-Waterloo news publication, ran a remarkable story about how RIM quietly installed a small plaque dedicated to Dr. Ernest Davison in their Boardroom. Now who is Ernest Davison you might ask? As the National Research Council representative in Waterloo, he was instrumental in helping local companies secure grants under the Industrial Research Assistant Program, including RIM. At a time when RIM was barely getting by, Mr. Davison was there to help. He urged Mike Lazaridis to apply for and receive that research grant for surface mount technology (SMT), a new way to construct electronic circuits, which led to RIM reaching an annual revenue of $1 million in 1990. 

Who knows what path RIM would have taken without the groundwork this inventor and engineer helped lay? His vast knowledge of technology coupled with his unwavering loyalty made him a powerful resource for tech companies seeking to grow. This is a generous gesture and shows just how much of an unsung hero Mr. Davison was behind the scenes. His friend, Newt Gingerich said it best: "He's one of the reasons Waterloo Region is what it is today." I couldn't agree more with that statement. 

Ernest Davinson's story is really an interesting one, and you can check it out at the link below. 

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During an interview with the BBC this week, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis ended the session prematurely when asked a simple question on the recent security issues regarding the Middle East. BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones asked Lazaridis about the situation to which he responded:

"You implied that we have a security problem, we don't have a security problem ... we've just been singled out, because we're so successful around the world. It's an iconic product, used by business, it's used by leaders, it's used by celebrities, it's used by consumers, it's used by teenagers, we were just singled out." 

Obviously upset by the question, Lazaridis promptly ended the interview saying "it's over ... you can't use that Rory it's just not fair." The issues surfaced late last year when several countries including India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates called BlackBerry use a "security risk". It was thought that a resolution in the matters had been reached, but apparently it still sits as a sore subject for RIM. What are your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!

Watch the clip from the BBC

The BlackBerry "Super Phone" is coming, just maybe not tomorrow. Mike Lazaridis sat down with PCMag at CES 2011 to discuss a bit about RIM's future and what we can expect in the coming years. During the interview Mike confirmed the plans to bring QNX to BlackBerry smartphones, but also said that current multi-core processors aren't quite what they need to make this happen. “Battery life, size, weight, thickness, cost” are all factors here, and until those are all up to par for what RIM has planned, it doesn't look like we'll be seeing QNX on our devices. Future QNX devices are coming, just no word on when exactly. RIM isn't in a hurry. "First they made RIM a global business, now they're delivering the PlayBook, and super phones are on the to-do list", he said. Mike alluded to the next 10 years of BlackBerry, and the growth they are preparing for in BlackBerry both in handheld devices and tablets.

We spent the last three years building a global company. Putting in all the infrastructure, building the relationships, building the supply channels, the infrastructure, the distribution, the manufacturing capacity, that's what we did! And we continue to grow, right? What we're setting up is for the next 10 years of BlackBerry. We just finished the first 10 years, actually closer to 12 - the first decade of BlackBerry. Now we're setting up for the next decade of BlackBerry. Right? That's what we're doing.

I think it's because we're always thinking ahead, we're always planning ahead. I think in this kind of business you have to have a lot of planning. It's one thing to take a reference design and package it. It's another thing to build a platform that can grow with your customers' needs, that can grow with where the market is going as opposed to where the market is today. To provide that uncompromised performance for enterprise, for government, for large corporations as well as provide an experience for the consumer that's unique. 

So how do you feel about these statements? Are you optimistic for the future of BlackBerry, or are you starting to get impatient? With RIM re-branding WES to BlackBerry World, all of us on the CrackBerry team are hoping we'll see RIM use this event to announce some BIG things for BlackBerry Smartphones (not just tablets) this May. Maybe Mike L is just setting us up to blow us away. I for one am excited to see what RIM brings us this year, and for years to come. They definitely have a solid foundation world-wide to build on, and I can't wait to see where they go. For the full interview, check out the link below.

Source: PCMag

RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is no stranger to the stage of All Things Digital. The above image (video here) is from his 2009 appearance there, which, he took the time to hash a few things out with Walt Mossberg about the direction of Research In Motion and how he felt about the competitors, such as Apple, Google and Palm. Now, Mike Lazaridis is slated to be speaking at the recently announced "D: Dive Into Mobile" conference in San Francisco on December 6th and 7th. No doubt there will be a lot of talk about the BlackBerry PlayBook during the interview. It's always interesting hearing from the folks who actually run the show as it often gives greater insight to some of the thought processes for the organizations in which they represent.

Source: All Things D

During yesterday's General Session here at WES 2010, Mike Lazaridis gave a keynote where he talked Bold 9650, Pearl 3G, BlackBerry 6 and a whole bunch more. If you missed our live blog, you can check out the full video here. It is a bit long at over 20 minutes, but its packed with some goodies from RIM you won't want to miss. The highlight of course was the quick video of BlackBerry 6, but if you have the time its definitely worth a watch.

WES is the biggest BlackBerry show of the year so it only make sense that RIM's head honchos all be on hand. While RIM's Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis will speak tomorrow morning during the general assembly keynote (we'll be live blogging it,) he spoke to analysts during Capital Markets today. During the event he highlighted a couple of interesting statistics, showed off a preview of BlackBerry 6 (hopefully this will be in the keynote tomorrow and we'll bring you a video) and from their handled some pretty intense Q&A. Some of the big takeaways:

• App World Downloads - RIM has never been one to hand out App World statistics, but apparently now they are and they aren't too shabby. Mike said App World is delivering a million downloads per day.
• OS 6.0 Availability - Coming in the next calendar quarter.
• OS 6.0 Input - As thought (and makes sense) OS 6.0 will work on touch and non-touch devices.
• OS 6.0 Backwards Compatibility - It seems the analysts in the room had the same burning question we have in terms of what current in-market devices will get OS 6.0. Mike L. didn't answer the question directly, but did make it clear that RIM will continue to do what they always do - carry on support for older devices as it makes sense (within memory limitations). So expect to see 6.0 launch on a new device and from there we'll see it trickle out to at least some current devices.
• WebKit clarification - Mike L. clarified that the WebKit browser is an integrated part of OS 6.0. It's not a standalone app (you won't be able to install the WebKit browser on OS 5.0 for example). He further elloborated saying that it's not really a "webkit browser" but a WebKit rendering engine, which can be/is leveraged in areas/apps beyond just the browser.

Lots of interesting stuff here that we'll try and follow up with more detail on over the next couple of days. If you want to dig into the nitty gritty, you can listen to the whole keynote above.

*UPDATE - At the time of writing this article we had based our original information as it was posted on Electronista. Since the time if the original publishing, new information has come about wherein the quoted comments from Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis may have been taken out of context or looked into to deeply. Since the new information is now available to us, we have posted the transcript below the break for you all to read. *

It's stories like this that make our brains hurt. When RIM's Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis says things like "touch-only phones like the iPhone aren't that popular" we find it really confusing... 1) We're pretty sure touch-only phones are popular - we see a lot of them and more being offered every day. 2) We're pretty sure RIM makes some touchscreen-only phones (whether they've made a good one or not yet you can debate in the comments). 3) We're pretty sure RIM is going to keep making at least some touchscreen-only devices moving ahead.

This new talk of touchscreen phones and tablets is stemming from a recent TD Newcrest technology conference keynote Lazaridis gave in Toronto. While Lazaridis was downplaying the efforts of the iPhone he addressed the tablet hype as well. Lazaridis claims there is no market for tablets and that as smartphones are getting more powerful and more computer like, this by
extension would reduce the need for a tablet. While we tend to somewhat agree that tablets and devices like Apple's new iPad are still finding their place in the world, the fact that Apple has pushed well over 300,000 of them and stores have long waiting lists clearly shows there is indeed an emerging market here that appears to have momentum behind it.

This is one of those posts where I could go on a big never-ending rant, so we'll end this early knowing that WES 2010 is just around the corner, where we'll hopefully gain some more insight into this and other areas of interest surrounding RIM. Worst case, we'll carry on this conversation in a live CrackBerry Podcast next week where plenty of booze is involved. That will be fun. 

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Shortly after RIM's Co-Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis gave his general assembly keynote at Mobile World Congress yesterday (view that video), he jumped over to App Planet to talk to the developers in attendance at BlackBerry Developer day.

In addition to rallying the BlackBerry developer troops with some BlackBerry facts and figures, Mike gave some advice to developers about remembering to look for opportunities in enterprise in addition to embracing the growing demand for consumer apps. Makes sense. Whereas consumers are looking for apps to be cheap (and preferably free) businesses are willing to pay for apps that add value to their organizations. In fact, just a little while ago at MWC here I ran into an individual from the IMGA (International Mobile Gaming Awards) team who gave me the stat that apparently only 9% of iPhone App developers are actually making money right now. The vast majority are still looking at iPhone apps as an investment vs. as a money maker, which adds some validation to this notion.

One other stat that Lazaridis made note of that REALLY caught my attention is that RIM makes 2 BlackBerry Smartphones every second. Multiply that out. That's 2 x 60 x 60 x 24 = 172,800 phones manufactured each day. That would equal 15.5 million phones in a quarter. RIM's official stat was that they shipped over 10 million phones in their last quarter. My guess is that Mike Lazaridis rounded up slightly to the two figure (or maybe RIM doesn't manufacturer quite 24/7), but either way, RIM is pumping out phones like crazy. In comparison, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt yesterday during an MWC address made note that 60,000 android-based phones are being sold each day and that number is growing. All in all, it really goes to show that the adoption of smartphones in the marketplace is ramping up as is the competition. It's going to be an interesting couple of years ahead!

Day 2 of Mobile World Congress has been a busy one for RIM, with BlackBerry Developer Day taking place at the App Planet venue (looked like a great turnout when I was there!) and RIM's Co-Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis taking center stage in this morning's keynote session. I grabbed Mike L's keynote on video so you can kick back and watch all of today's announcement like you were there in the crowd. 

In addition to announcing BES Express and giving us a glimpse of RIM's new WebKit browser, Mike Lazaridis introduced RIM's take on Super Apps (more on that to come in another post/podcast) and also spent time in the beginning reinforcing that spectrum is a finite resource and that RIM continues to care about respecting a carrier's bandwidth in its focus on data efficiency. Check it out and be sure to drop your thoughts in the comments. Enjoy the show! 

Just the other day we got a good look back at 10 years of BlackBerry from the folks over at Engadget which was a great article. Engadget was not the only resource to focus on the past ten years of BlackBerry. The Financial post also found the time take a walk down memory lane as well as get a sneak peek into the future by interviewing the Founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion, Mike Lazaridis. The interview is an enjoyable read and gives great insight into where the co-CEO thinks things are headed in the coming years. I found some of the responses quite interesting, especially the ones regarding mobile browsing and its impact on mobile carriers. Give it a read and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.

Final thought. I know it never happened in 2007, 2008 or 2009, but I wonder if 2010 will be the year that Kevin gets to interview either Mike Lazaridis or Jim Balsillie for a CrackBerry.com interview. If that ever happened, what are the questions you'd want to ask RIM's head honchos? Throw those in the comments too!

• Read The Full Interview Via The Financial Post Website >>