Here's my 2 cents, I worked as an intern (coop) and have subsequently worked in other tech companies in Waterloo that have ex-RIM employees. I think the problem was mainly managers, a lot of the managers didn't program, some held cs degrees but they hadn't programmed in a while to the point where they really couldn't really access the code, so basically never really looked at code (the code itself was ok because other programmers did). However, what did happen was a lot of managers started accessing their team based on how much they looked like they were doing, in short how busy they looked. Some of the smartest developers are terrible and office politics, emails and at meetings . Without emails or engaging in meetings it gave an impression that the developers didn't care, I've seen some incredible developers get fired because they didn't fit the "company culture." This was acceptable because "company culture" was in at the time, but it was just a way to support manager bias. For example, I knew this guy who would usually come to work late and only answer emails at lunch and keep a fairly chill attitude, but would usually stay late 6-7 until he did his 8+ hours, however in the eyes of the manager who was there from 9-5, the picture looked completely different, he was fired a few months later. Now I was there for a short time and only part of one team, so I can't speak for the whole organization, but I've worked for other tech firms in the area whose managers were ex-RIM and they basically did the exact same thing. In short, 1) having mangers that are heading an engineering team should be programming 2) employees should be peer-reviewed and not at the mercy of the managers (a lot of sucking up happens when the manager has that much power)

This probably isn't the main thing that killed RIM, there were probably hundreds of reasons, but over time this put in a culture of complacency, and there probably isn't much upper management could have done, because it was all done for the sake of improving "company culture"