[jessedhillon]

It's a two paragraph response to a well-reasoned critique, which outlined several important, thoughtful points. By contrast, the response looks as though it was co-authored by an accountant and an HR rep.

> ...it is particularly difficult to believe that a “high level employee” in good standing with the company would choose to anonymously publish a letter on the web rather than engage their fellow executives in a constructive manner, but regardless of whether the letter is real, fake, exaggerated or written with ulterior motivations...

That seems like a petty way to respond publicly. Especially in juxtaposition with the first letter, which was frank but polite.

[skroth]

I'm obviously in the minority here, but I don't feel their response was so bad. There are plenty of "well-reasoned critiques that outline several important, thoughtful points" of many companies on the internet. I think the fact that they responded at all is good. Remember Apple's response to the iPhone 4 issues? We (finally) got Jobs pointing the finger at other companies and trying to shift the attention.

Here RIM is admitting they're in some shit, and yes, they are only offering the typical response, but what else do you expect? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious how they could have responded that would make critics happy.

My thought is that the only thing they can do right now is promise action, which they did. Whether they follow through or not, I have no idea.

In response to your quoted text: I have no idea if the person really was an employee. I think people should take a neutral look at this instead of assuming one way or the other. On one hand, it could be an employee who has already talked to his colleagues about these issues and has been ignored. On the other hand, it's possible that it is just a bad media stunt by someone trying to bring negative attention to RIM or even trying to make some money with shorting them. If it's the former, I agree with you and would find this backpedalling immature. In the latter case I would agree with RIM and feel their response is appropriate.

[athst]

I agree, it was good for them to respond with something. It shows that they are aware of the many criticisms flying around the press right now, and that they are actually paying attention. Saying nothing would make it seem like they are totally disconnected. Maybe it wasn't the best response in the world, but it wasn't bad either.

In the quick news cycles of today driven by twitter, as a company you have to respond quickly to stuff like this. Otherwise it just snowballs. I'm impressed they drafted a response in the same day as well.

[ScottBurson]

I don't think it was so bad either, but I think SeoxyS's (above) is better; it's less defensive, without saying anything that will cause another whack to be taken out of the stock price.

[tolmasky]

Did the original letter even get that much traction? I got the impression it would have blown over tomorrow. Instead now they may get a Streisand effect.

[technoslut]

It's not going to die anytime soon. I just saw Gellar on CNBC and he said that he has two more letters from people inside RIM. I got the impression that he will publish those as well.