RIM CEO clarifies: 'Significant' changes ahead

New CEO at Research in Motion, Thorsten Heins, has revealed that he is planning "significant" changes for the company and clarified his previous statement that there would be no "seismic change" during his first conference a few weeks.

In an interview with Reuters Friday, Heins said he would be presenting to the board his plans for the company's future in a few week's time. The changes for the BlackBerry maker would be "significant" but he did not elaborate on specific details, said the news wire.

The CEO's claims of significant changes for the company contrasted with his first conference call a few weeks before during which he said: "I don't think that there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving...but this is not a seismic change."

Heins told Reuters he had meant that he was not looking to change the core of the business. Putting the company for sale or to be spun off would be "a drastic, seismic change because it would tear the company apart", he said.

The executive singled out the U.S. market as one where RIM was a "turnaround candidate". "We lost market share in this market quite substantially. That is something that we have to address," he noted.

Prior to Heins' promotion from his role as COO, analysts told ZDNet Asia that appointing a new CEO would not be able to save the BlackBerry maker as the company was in a tough spot where Apple and Google's Android mobile operating system (OS) dominated the mobile landscape. RIM's delayed release of products with the BlackBerry 10 OS also meant that it would be competing with other phones including future generations of the iPhone, Android and Windows devices, one analyst added.