Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins defended the future of his company just ahead of the launch of the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and handsets, saying he expects his critics to back down as the group re-establishes itself.
"I'm very confident that we will do the Muhammad Ali thing in round 8…Wednesday is round 8," he said, referring to the launch of the company's Blackberry 10 operating system on Jan. 30. Ali won a historic boxing event by knocking his challenger out in the eighth round.
RIM has lost markets share to Apple and Samsung in recent years, with even business customers – once the group's core client base – turning their backs on the company. Heins, who took over a year ago, said the company has learnt from its mistakes.
"Innovation moves so fast that you cannot get into 'innovator's dilemma' and that is what happened to us a little bit. We had a huge recipe for success in enterprises, and technology moves on, it moves on faster and faster," he said at a CNBC-moderated debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.