Drunk RIM executives cause plane to divert to Vancouver

The two Research in Motion executives have since been fired. RIM makes the Blackberry. The two were on a flight from Toronto to Beijing.

Their behavior was so disruptive the plane finally diverted to Vancouver where the two were arrested. George Campbell, 45, and Paul Alexander Wilson, 38, were charged with mischief and pleaded guilty. The judge ordered that they pay 72,000 in restitution. They were given suspended sentences. They will be on parole for a year.

Apparently the two were quite drunk even at the start of the flight. They drank enough to pass out but then woke up and started yelling at each other Campbell lay belly down in the aisle kicking. One of the two assaulted one flight attendant and threatened another.

Crew members finally handcuffed the two with plastic restraints and tapes but they managed to chew through them! Flight attendants and passengers continued to restrain the two until the plane landed. Researach in motion is one thing but heavy drinking and rowdiness in motion are quite another. For more see this article.

Research in Motion stock motion is down

   Research in Motion (RIM) the Canada-based company that makes the Blackberry has been selling off its Playbook tablet at huge markdowns from its original price. I saw it on sale at Futureshop the other day advertised at 200 dollars marked down from 500. Of course they had none in stock!
   RIM had introduced the Playbook in April at a time when iPad had already established a clear dominance of the market. In the third quarter of this year RIM sold 150,000 Playbooks compared to 11million iPads sold by Apple.
   RIM shares dropped more than 8 per cent the other day. Once a favorite with investors, this year the price of the stock has dropped about 70 per cent. The company warned it would not meet its financial targets. RIM market share has been eaten up by the Apple iPhone and also Google's Android devices. A global outage of  its network for the Blackberry also hurt consumer confidence in the company.
For much more detail see this article.