Research in Motion Must Change BlackBerry OS Name (RIMM)

Once a company starts shooting itself in the foot it seems that it often forgets how to stop. The latest example is Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) which has been blocked by a federal judge from using ‘BBX’ as the name of its new BlackBerry operating system. The name has been a trademark of Albuquerque, New Mexico, company Basis International, which has been using the trademarked name since 1985.

The brain trust at RIM has said that it will call the new OS ‘BlackBerry 10’ in another show of striking originality. RIM had planned to use the ‘BBX’ name to introduce the new OS at the DevCon trade show which begins today in Singapore.

This flap is just the latest that can be set down to RIM’s apparent management style of ignoring an issue that it thinks will either go away on its own or be resolved in RIM’s favor because, after all, we’re RIM. Little wonder the company’s stock price is down more than -45% in the past 12 months.