????自從加拿大手機公司黑莓（Blackberry）把其股票代碼從RIMM改為BBRY，至今已經快有十個月了。這次更名采用的是它那臺一開始造就財富、后來卻讓公司千金散盡的手機名字。這個品牌重構計劃是弗蘭克?布爾本的主意。去年12月，我最后一次造訪該公司位于滑鐵盧的總部時，這位來自法國的營銷高管向我展示了這個創意，當時他剛剛履新這家智能手機制造商的首席營銷官一職不久。我們窩在公司那一排排灰色格子間當中的一個會議室聊這件事，而他信誓旦旦地表示，這些格子間很快就會被明亮多彩、合作共享的工作空間所取代。他說：“這將是一個全新的黑莓！”，一邊把一臺漂亮的手機樣機推到我面前。

????而去年冬天，我們這些黑莓的旁觀者們一度屏住了呼吸，大氣也不敢出。

????當時這家科技巨頭用一幫外來的高管換掉了自己的管理團隊，還打算推出一對據信能拯救公司的手機。那些從一輪輪裁員中幸存下來的員工眼里重新燃起了希望。而這兩部手機，噢，這手機真是太美了。比如Z10的觸摸屏上那塊鍵盤下面有個熱圖，當用戶使用手機時，它能讓各個按鍵的位置適應擊鍵的方式（坦白說不管你的手指肥瘦如何，它都會導致一些拼寫錯誤）。當初這家公司積極籌備冬季發布會時，那種激動人心的感覺是顯而易見的。也許，只是也許，黑莓這次能不再搞砸。

????然后，然后就沒有然后了。

????11月25日，黑莓宣布布爾本將離職，與他同時離開的還有首席運營官克里斯蒂安?蒂爾和首席財務官布萊恩?比杜爾卡，后者是黑莓的資深高管。布爾本和蒂爾都是首席執行官托斯滕?海恩斯招來的，而他自己也在三周前就離職了。除了黑莓的首席法務官斯蒂芬?澤潑斯特恩，公司唯一一位由海恩斯招募至今還未被驅逐的就是公司的首席創意官，歌手艾莉西亞?凱斯。

????海恩斯面臨的任務一度極為棘手。2012年1月，當他取代那兩位統治公司長達十年之久的掌門人出任首席執行官時，黑莓正深陷危機。黑莓7操作系統根本賣不動，那款名叫PlayBook的平板也一樣。這家公司已經錯失了好幾次技術轉型的絕佳機會：從物理鍵盤過渡到虛擬鍵盤；從3G無線通訊技術過渡到更快的LTE技術。由于此前公司一直長期處于超高速、頗為混亂的發展中，它的管理層變得極為臃腫——有兩位首席執行官，三位首席運營官，而且他們的工作職能也多有重疊。2008年夏天，北美的智能手機市場迎來爆發式增長，黑莓的股價也攀上了144美元的歷史高峰，而現在卻在15美元左右低位徘徊。更有傳言稱，黑莓的賬上其實已經沒有現金了。

????分析師和股東們紛紛建議，公司迫切需要請一位翻盤專家來扭轉危局。據海恩斯稱，一開始只有一個公司內部人士在他主持的第一次電話會議中表示，行動研究公司（RIM）不需要來一場根本變革。說實話，海恩斯很明白這家公司當時的處境。去年采訪他時，他對我說：“你不能走到員工面前說，‘這公司現在糟透了。’在我對媒體談起復蘇計劃前，我必須先和自己的員工溝通，讓他們為變革做好準備。”

????海恩斯最大的錯誤在于戰略。他要挑戰處于統治地位的智能手機巨頭，想憑借造型優美的手機、時髦酷炫的軟件在他們規定的游戲規則中打敗他們。不過，盡管黑莓的新款手機的確漂亮，但它們上市時間太遲了，直到公司許諾時間幾個月后才姍姍來遲的，同時，在龐大的智能手機用戶群早已被谷歌公司（Google）和蘋果公司（Apple）的產品所打造的應用生態圈俘獲后，這兩款手機基本上就沒人關注了。更糟糕的是，海恩斯參與競技的是一個第三名出局的市場。

????同時，海恩斯還聘請銀行家來為公司可能的出售交易而估值。他對我說：“我也必須準備一套‘B計劃’。”由于新手機在市場上遭到冷遇，海恩斯又開始花力氣為公司找個買家，但這個愿望也落了空。在完成為期兩個月的戰略選擇評估，同時與包括Facebook公司、聯想公司（Lenovo）和幾家私募股權基金公司這類潛在買家洽談無果后，黑莓放棄了努力——同時也放棄了海恩斯。

????黑莓轉而宣布將募集10億美元，同時已經指定程守宗擔任過渡期首席執行官。

????程守宗是迪斯尼公司（The Walt Disney Company）和富國銀行（Wells Fargo）的董事，因為上世紀90年代末拯救賽貝斯公司（Sybase）而聲名鵲起。2010年，賽貝斯公司以58億美元的價格賣給了SAP公司（SAP），這是他當初剛來公司時市值的15倍多。不過擺在他面前這個拯救黑莓的重任恐怕要艱巨得多（眾所周知他扮演的是一個“過渡性”的角色）。程守宗有一次接受行業博客CrackBerry的采訪時表示，他對未來的展望是，聘用一位負責日常管理的首席執行官，而他自己將以下面這種方式對公司盡忠職守：“我會深入思考，聽取所有人的意見和建議，然后再決定自己這個過渡期該是怎樣一種過渡。”

????正如這周的新聞所表明的那樣，程守宗的首要任務是打造一支全新的管理團隊，這也是多年來的第三支團隊，重建這家率先教會大家在掌上收發電郵的公司。他還需要整頓公司現有的員工隊伍，他們很多人此前已聽過不少對于改變的承諾。程守宗表示，他并沒有取消手機業務的計劃，而且打算讓黑莓繼續留在加拿大發展。

????如果確實還有人能將黑莓從行將就木的邊緣挽救回來，這個人非程守宗莫屬。不過下面這個問題也并不唐突：黑莓真的還能救活嗎？

????譯者：清遠

????It has been almost 10 months since the Canadian business mobility company BlackBerry ditched the RIMM ticker symbol for (BBRY), renaming itself after the device that made -- and then lost -- its fortune. That rebranding was Frank Boulben's idea. The French marketing executive showed it to me in December during my last trip to Waterloo, shortly after he'd become chief marketing officer of the smartphone maker. We'd bunkered down in a conference room embedded somewhere within the company's halls of gray cubicles, which he boasted would soon be replaced with bright and colorful collaborative workspaces. "It's the new BlackBerry!" he told me, pushing a gorgeous demo phone my way.

????For a moment last winter, we BlackBerry watchers held our breaths.

????The tech giant had replaced its management team with a band of executive outsiders and was about to launch a pair of devices it believed could save the company. Employees who had survived rounds of layoffs were energized again. And the devices! Oh, the devices. They were so beautiful. On the Z10, for example, the touchscreen display boasted a keyboard with a heat map beneath it so that, as customers use it, the position of keys adjusted to their keystrokes (leading to few spelling mistakes, to be fair, no matter how fat your thumbs). As the company prepared for its winter unveiling, the excitement was palpable. Maybe, just maybe, BlackBerry will get it right this time.

????Then it was over.

????On November 25, BlackBerry announced Boulben will leave the company along with Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear and Chief Financial Officer Brian Bidulka, a longtime BlackBerry exec. Both Boulben and Tear were recruited by chief executive Thorsten Heins, who left the company three weeks earlier. Apart from BlackBerry's chief legal officer Steven Zipperstein, the only one of Heins's high-profile hires who hasn't publicly been ousted is the company's chief creative officer, singer Alicia Keys.

????Heins had a tough job. When he took over as CEO in January 2012, displacing the duo who had run the company for a decade, BlackBerry was in crisis. The BlackBerry 7 operating system wasn't selling, nor was its tablet, the PlayBook. The company had missed several technology transitions: from physical keyboards to virtual; from 3G wireless communication technology to faster LTE. Having been in a state of chaotic hypergrowth for so long, it had layers of management -- two CEOs and three COOs to start -- with overlapping responsibilities. The stock, which had peaked at $144 when the company dominated the explosive North American smartphone market in summer 2008, was idling at $15. And rumors had surfaced that BlackBerry had no cash.

????Analysts and shareholders alike cried out for a turnaround specialist. In Heins, they instead got an insider who suggested in his first conference call that RIM did not need a turnaround. To be fair, Heins understood the position in which the company found itself. When I visited him last year, he told me: "You can't go in front of your people and say, 'This company is in deep shit'," he said. "Before I talked to the media about a turnaround, I had to talk to my people and prepare [them] for what was to come."

????Heins's biggest mistake was one of strategy. He attempted to take on the ruling smartphone oligopoly by besting them at their own game, creating sleeker devices with snazzier software. But as beautiful as BlackBerry's new devices were, they were late to market, launching many months after the company had promised, and they went largely unnoticed by a sea of smartphone users already entrenched in the app ecosystems of Google (GOOG) and Apple's (AAPL) products. What's more, Heins was competing in a market in which the third player was getting pushed out.

????At the same time, Heins hired bankers to evaluate the company for a potential sale. "I had to plan for a 'Plan B' as well," he told me. As BlackBerry's devices met with a tepid response, Heins put more effort into finding the company a suitor. But that didn't work either. After completing a two-month review of strategic options and talking with potential buyers that included Facebook (FB), Lenovo and several private equity firms, the company abandoned its efforts -- and also Heins.

????Instead, BlackBerry has announced it will raise $1 billion, and the company has appointed outsider John Chen as an interim CEO.

????Chen, who sits on the boards of both The Walt Disney Company (DIS) and Wells Fargo (WFC), gets credit for saving Sybase in the late 1990s; in 2010, the enterprise software company sold to SAP (SAP) for $5.8 billion, more than 15 times the company's market cap when he first came on board. But the BlackBerry job before him is arguably harder. (It is notable that his role is deemed "interim.") In an interview with the industry blog CrackBerry, Chen said he envisioned a future in which he hired a CEO for day-to-day management, framing his commitment to the company this way: "I'll think through and listen to everybody else and what their advice is, and then I'll decide how interim is interim."

????As this week's news suggest, Chen's first order of business is casting a new management team, the third in as many years, to rebuild the company that first taught all of us we could check email from our palms. He'll need to rally the company's remaining employees, many of whom have heard promises of change before. Chen has said he doesn't plan to abolish the handset business, and he wants to keep BlackBerry in Canada.

????If anyone can save BlackBerry from a slow death, it is Chen. But it's not impolite to ask: Can BlackBerry be saved at all?