Interview With Alex Kinsella
Executive Corner
- By Raegen Pietrucha
- 10/01/2011
What’s your current state of mind?
I’m pretty excited right now. There’s a lot of really cool churn and turnover in the industry right now. … There’s room for a number of players in the mobile space, and it’s exciting to see the transitions that are occurring. Just being able to be connected but not overwhelmed with that is really interesting to me.
What’s the greatest challenge you face today?
Developer mindshare. There’s a number of platforms out there; how do we attract developers to our platform? Getting that message out there gets more and more difficult every day.
What do you see as your biggest opportunity?
I would say the biggest opportunity right now is automotive. Automotive is almost this untapped market for mobile. Wi-Fi connectivity in there and the ability to get content into a car is the next great frontier.
What would you consider your greatest achievement?
BlackBerry App World. We’re really kind of a third-place store when it comes to number of applications, but we’re coming around quickly. Now we have over 35,000 applications. We’re really excited to see the growth of the store. We’re building up momentum.
Where are you investing the most within your company this year?
As usual, R&D and where platforms are to run software together — continuing to innovate in that and bring out faster, more robust platforms for BlackBerry users and developers.
What’s your greatest concern for the industry?
Patent lawsuits. Every single player in the industry at some point in the last six months had a lawsuit against somebody else. To a large degree, software patents stifle innovation. Groups that just file patents without actually building anything or ones who buy a large number of patents — it’s really concerning from both a mobile software and mobile hardware perspective.
If your customers were to describe your company in three words, what would they be?
Innovative. Customer-friendly. Underdog.
Managed print services or managed services?
Managed services.
What qualities do you look for when making key hires?
… Someone who has a really good mix of not just product management experience but a good mix of development experience, customer service experience, and just really understands more of the whole ecosystem rather than just one specific piece of the pie — especially when it comes to customer service. Ensuring that you have the customer in mind I think is priority one.
How would your employees and co-workers describe you?
Overly passionate. I’ve heard that from one of them.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I say “awesome” way too much. … And “agile.” I say “agile” way too much.
Why do you hold your current business position today?
I think I hold my position today just for my belief that customers come first, and in doing so, I help the company build products that customers love and want to use and are sticky — ones that customers really feel add value to what they do.
Do trends exist in this industry?
They do. They definitely affect us. I think that the biggest trend to change things was applications on smart phones, and it’s also been perception of technologies and what the consumer sees as value.
Who is your next hire?
More product marketing people.
What’s your favorite quote?
“Wherever you go, there you are.”
This article originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of The Imaging Channel.