RIM boss accuses China of IP theft risk
We're steering clear of PRC, says Heins
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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has reignited the debate over whether China is a safe place to do business, after claiming this week that the BlackBerry-maker does not have any manufacturing bases in the country due to security concerns.
Heins made the comments in a response to a question at the embattled smartphone firm’s annual general meeting on Tuesday as to what it was doing to prevent long-term data leakage of the scale seen at Nortel.
“Very frankly, that is why we are not building or manufacturing in China, as many of our competitors do, to really protect our [software] code and make sure the [intellectual property] of RIM is protected,” he said, according to the Washington Post.
Given that that the security of its devices and BES messaging infrastructure is one of the few competitive advantages RIM has left over its rivals in the crowded smartphone space, any compromise would be disastrous for the firm.
Heins’ concerns would seem to be well founded. The Reg has previously reported that many foreign multinationals in the region are complaining about IP theft from their Chinese business units, and RIM would certainly be a potential target.
However, Kenny Lee, a principal consultant in Verizon Business’ Asia Pacific investigative response team, told El Reg that there are dangers everywhere for a firm like RIM.
“The truth is that cases of IP theft also occur in the US and Canada. Staying away from manufacturing in China doesn’t automatically protect any company from third parties obtaining access to proprietary data,” he added.
“In recent news, infrastructures that were once thought to be very secure have been breached and that tells us no environment can ever be 100 per cent secure.”
Lee argued that firms should make sure they develop a strong incident response plan to ensure that if a breach occurs, they can swiftly and effectively manage the fall-out.
In any case, when it comes to China, a much bigger risk of IP leakage could be said to come via legitimate technology transfers that most Chinese partners force on foreign tech firms, in return for access to their huge domestic market.
There were rumours at a recent BT event that these security concerns may have contributed to the telco’s historical reluctance to go into a joint venture with any of the big local players in the Chinese market. ®
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COMMENTS
Re: Genius... to speak without forked tongue and call China thieves
Take your collective heads out of your arses and see the light...China is a country full of thieving businessmen and politicians. They have NO ETHICS and consider anyone who does (outsiders) to be a weakling. There is no rule of law in China, you only get what law you pay or threaten for and for enough money, even past decisions can be overthrown.
The law in western companies mostly due to freedom of the press and the independent nature of the courts and lawyers. China has none of that and literally everyone in the system is on somebodies payroll or barters for favors.
Most anyone who has ever tried to manufacture in China has gotten the wrong end of the deal in return.
You have to give up too much in return for doing business there so what is the point. Better to buy "reliable" influence in another more business favorable climate than waste time and money in China.
Apple
They seem to do fine getting their stuff produced there. So what is the difference? Corporate relations, culture and information sharing policy.
Calling an entire country something is always stupid, short sighted, a massive error in business. What next? Firing Chinese Americans, Canadians? What if they are evil red army agents? Lets also do a genetic profile while on it!
Re: Genius
There have been reports that Huawei raided NorTel's servers stealing all their IP, so yeah, I'd call them a thief? Have you not noticed that a huge amount of counterfeit goods comes out of china? So yeah, I'd trust them as far as I could toss the whole country.
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