Research in Motion lost a critical member of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server team, leaving the smartphone maker to face challenges without key management expertise.
RIM vice president of BES John Vandermay left the company for a new position at Gemcom Software International. Vandermay led a team of more than 400 software developers at RIM and is seen as instrumental to the BlackBerry's success with business customers.
Vandermay, whose work on BES turned the BlackBerry into powerhouse among business customers, joins the ranks of several other high-ranking RIM employees who left the company this year.
In March, chief marketing officer Keith Pardy left RIM, and in July the company's senior product manager on the BlackBerry PlayBook, Ryan Bidan, also announced his departure. In August, RIM's head of developer relations Mike Kirkup announced his resignation on a blog.
The departures of several pivotal employees come as the company deals with business and financial challenges. RIM is struggling to compete against the iPhone and Android devices and recently initiated layoffs to stay afloat. Meanwhile, investors and shareholders continue to criticize the company's direction, and sales of its new BlackBerry OS 7 devices remain unimpressive.
The company is placing its hopes for the future on new devices powered by its QNX operating system. RIM claims the new platform, scheduled to hit early next year, is as advanced as its competitors' and will usher in the next ten years of BlackBerry products.
But RIM is struggling to make BES work on the new OS, and without Vandermay's help, figuring out the issue before launching its first QNX device may be a challenge.
RIM has shown signs it would continue with the launch of QNX powered BlackBerries without BES support, which may be the wrong move for the company. Analysts believe launching the QNX OS without e-mail support for its core business users would be a "suicidal move" for the company.
RIM withstood several losses of high-ranking employees over the past several months, but the timing of Vandermay's resignation and the importance of BES to the BlackBerry's success may make his departure the company's loss biggest yet.
