Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the co-chief executives of Research In Motion Ltd., have stepped down as heads of the Waterloo, Ont.-based technology company.

According to a news release issued Sunday, RIM’s board of directors unanimously named former chief operating officer Thorsten Heins as president and CEO on the advice of Balsillie and Lazaridis.

“There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership,” Lazaridis said. “Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now.”

RIM has faced intense pressure from shareholders for months to change its management structure amid concerns the company is unable to compete with rivals Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

The company, maker of the BlackBerry series of smartphones and tablets, was the most valuable company in Canada as recently as 2008, but after a series of missteps the company has seen its share of the smartphone market dwindle.

According to the company, Lazaridis is now the vice-chair of the company’s board of directors as well as chair of its new innovation committee.

Balsillie will remain a member of RIM’s board of directors.

“I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company,” Balsillie said. “I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support.”

Heins joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG, becoming a senior vice-president. He was appointed chief operating officer for product and sales in August 2011.

Lazaridis said Heins has the right mix of leadership, industry experience and skills to take the company forward.

“We have been impressed with his operational skills at both RIM and Siemens,” he said. “I am so confident in RIM’s future that I intend to purchase an additional $50 million of the company’s shares, as permitted, in the open market.”

Among other changes at the top of RIM, current director and former Toronto Stock Exchange CEO Barbara Stymiest will become independent board chair and Fairfax Financial Holdings CEO Prem Watsa will join the board.

Big slide in 2011

Balsillie and Lazaridis, who shared the CEO and chair titles, have headed RIM together for the past two decades.

The company took a big slide in 2011, dropping behind its peers in the lightning-paced smartphone market, suffering through the worst service outage in its history and losing tens of billions of dollars in market value.

And the PlayBook tablet, RIM’s answer to the Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support and the company was forced to give it deep discounts to help move the devices off store shelves.

The company announced that it will take a $485-million US charge before tax on the cost of discounting the price of its PlayBook tablet and $50 million in lost revenues from an October service outage that affected millions of BlackBerry email and text users. It was forced to cut 2,000 jobs to keep costs in line.

In December, RIM reported third-quarter net profits of $265 million US, well below the $911 million for the same period a year before. That came despite the sale of millions more BlackBerrys than in 2010 and a 35 per cent rise in global subscribers to 75 million.

Many investors held Balsillie and Lazaridis responsible for the company’s problems and previously called for them to be replaced and also for the company to be sold or broken up.

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McGraw-Hill Cos. normally sells high-school textbooks for $75 a pop. Now it says it will sell electronic versions of the same books, via Apple, for $15 each. How can the publisher make that work?

It’s the usual answer for this kind of digital question:

“Volume,” says McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw.

But there’s an important asterisk here, too. Normally, McGraw-Hill would sell its books directly to public schools, which would keep the texts for an average of five years.

Under Apple’s new textbooks plan, though, McGraw-Hill will try something different. It will sell its books directly to each student, who will use the book for a year, then move on. They’ll be able to keep the digital text, but won’t be able to resell it or pass it along to another student, and McGraw-Hill anticipates that another set of students will buy new books the following year.

So Mr. McGraw figures that over five years, he’ll generate the same total sales selling $15 ebooks as he would selling $75 books.

Of course, Apple will take an undisclosed cut of sales— McGraw-Hill execs wouldn’t go into details, so let’s assume for now that it’s Apple’s standard 30%—but presumably McGraw-Hill can make up some of that by forgoing the cost of print and distribution.

All of this assumes that the book pricing stays at $15. After Apple’s event, McGraw-Hill executives repeatedly used the phrase “pilot pricing” to describe their near-term plans. They said they have the ability to change the price when and if they want.

But Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue, Apple’s frontman on all media matters, said, “This isn’t pilot pricing…. All of our books will be $14.99.”

It’s important to note that this is about the high-school textbook market, for now. While McGraw-Hill and other publishers sell college texts though other digital platforms, they still haven’t announced plans to do so with Apple.

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Sweden dealt a symbolic blow to the global fight against digital music and film piracy by recognizing a group that promotes file-sharing across the Internet as a religion.

One of the most wired nations in the world, Sweden has long been a battleground between those who support file-sharing and the music and film industry. The Nordic state gave birth to the world’s largest filesharing website, Pirate Bay.

Registering the Church of Kopimism is a way to avoid “persecution,” said the website of the group, which was given official recognition by the Swedish state last month.

Kopimism’s name is derived from the words “copy me” and as its website makes clear it supports all forms of downloading and uploading files and sees copyright laws as violating freedom of information.

“We believe that information is holy,” said Isak Gerson, who calls himself the “spiritual leader” of a church whose key symbols are “Ctrl C” and “Ctrl V,” the keyboard short cuts for copy and paste.

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Microsoft today launched a Web site, The Art of Touch, that lets Netizens create their own digital paintings.

On the site, which uses HTML5, users can select three different width paint brushes as well as six effects that alter each “brush stroke” with mouse movements. The palette of pastel colors are pre-selected, generated as would-be artists move their mice at different speeds. So when users slide their mouse slowly, for example, they can create a ribbon of red surrounded by starbursts of blue and yellow.

For Microsoft, the idea is to generate interest in its “Touch” series of mice, though, the site works with any mouse, or even a touch pad on a laptop. It doesn’t work with tablets, such as the iPad, where finger strokes move or resize the screen.

Ben Reed, a senior manager in Microsoft’s hardware group, calls the effort a “social experiment.” Microsoft’s goal is to engage consumers and raise awareness of the company’s products.

The company has recruited three generative artists to create special effects for the site. One of them, Norwegian artist Marius Watz, said he was intrigued by the possibility of users tinkering with his creations, something that doesn’t typically happen with his art.

“As an artist, you’re not usually that promiscuous with your work,” Watz said. “I’m pleased that it is irreverent.”

Users can print out their work, share on social networks, or even create T-shirts, coffee mugs, and the like featuring their work through a connection with Zazzle. And Microsoft is holding a contest, where the top vote-getters can win a computer and mouse.

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Looking north as the ISS passed southeast over North America on the night of October 18, this video offers a great perspective of our planet as a globe spinning in space!

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Here’s another sequence from the same flyover, showing a southeast-facing view:

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Computerworld polled 353 IT executives about their hiring plans for 2012 in its annual IT Forecast survey. The results indicate that U.S. companies will be investing in their IT workforces to bolster business in the year ahead; Nearly 29% of respondents plan to take on new IT staffers through Summer 2012 – a 45% increase in IT hiring expectations over last year’s results. The survey also reveals that companies will be thinking about innovation, not just “keeping the lights on,” as they plan next year’s IT hiring.

Here are the top nine skill sets the IT executives will be hiring for in 2012:

Programming and Application Development
61% of the executives plan to hire web and application developers over the next 12 months. Driven by continued explosive growth in the mobile market, this represents the largest year-over-year growth rate in a single skill set. Companies will hire record numbers of mobile application developers in 2012 to develop new apps and technologies to increase their reach and meet the needs of mobile users.

Project Management
Large-scale IT projects in 2012 will demand skilled and talented project managers to make sure goals are met on time, under budget, and to specifications. The demand is greatest for PMs who can also play the increasingly popular role of “IT business analyst,” meaning the executives want to hire project managers who will not only oversee and monitor, but help plan and deliver projects as well.

Help Desk & Technical Support
Until the day when technology is no longer used in the workplace there will be a need for help desk technicians. The twist in 2012 is that mobile devices have added a new dimension to the IT help desk. Certifications that validate mobile computing skills in a popular operating system, like the MCTS: Windows 7 – Configuration, can help you leverage this demand to get hired.

Networking
2012’s increased demand for IT networking professionals is fueled in part by an uptick in virtualization and cloud computing projects. As for specific qualifications in these areas, the tech executives will be looking to hire IT professionals with skills, certifications, and experience in VMware and Citrix.

Business Intelligence
Increased demand for IT professionals with BI skills is a promising trend for the IT job market, as it indicates a shift away from cost savings to investing in technology that provides access to real-time data for better business decisions. Noteworthy beneficiaries of the BI hiring increase include Microsoft SharePoint developers and SQL Server BI Specialists.

Data Center
More demand for data center professionals is another impact of organizations’ increased focus on cloud and virtualization strategies in 2012. Particularly, “hiring managers will be looking for IT pros with [training and experience] in data center operations and systems integration,” says John Reed, Executive Staffing Director of IT staffing firm, Robert Half Technology.

Web 2.0
IT skills centered around social media will increase in demand as more businesses look to engage consumers and gain a competitive advantage through online platforms and social networking campaigns. In demand skills in Web 2.0 include HTML, XML, CSS, Flash & JavaScript on the front-end, and AJAX, PHP & .Net for back-end programming. Web developers will capitalize on the Web 2.0 hiring push.

Security
Security remains a top concern for IT hiring managers through 2012 as the frequency, scope, and sophistication of cyber attacks continues to rise. Some of the IT execs report actively seeking professionals with security and auditing skills, but finding it difficult to locate good talent. This indicates an excellent opportunity for IT pros to advance their information security skills and credentials. The survey indicates that companies moving into cloud computing have higher than average demand for information security pros.

Telecommunications
IT professionals with telecommunications expertise will see increased demand as organizations continue to upgrade call centers and communication systems with the latest digital hardware and technology. Sought after telecommunications skills include IP telephony, VOIP, and Cisco IP Call Center.

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