Balsillie Bails on BlackBerry

Jim Balsillie has officially cut all ties with BlackBerry.  The co-founder and former co-CEO who once  re-mortgaged his house to keep the Canadian company afloat has sold all his remaining stock of the smartphone maker.

A document filed with  U.S. regulators revealed that Balsillie no longer held shares in Research In Motion (now rebranded as BlackBerry) as of Dec. 31 of last year.

At the end of  2011 Balsillie owned more than 26 million shares of the company, according to filings obtained through DisclosureNet.com.

Still not clear is how much Balsillie received in the sale nut projection put it at somewhere around 250 million.

In January 2012, Balsillie resigned from the co-CEO position, alongside  co-founder Mike Lazaridis.  Both men took director roles at that time,  but Balsillie completely exited the company, hardly two months later.

Balsillie joined RIM in the early 1990s when it was just  a startup company and is credited with much of their early success.

Many have also blamed Balsillie and his pursuit of an NHL franchise for the companies slow reaction to increased competition, and numerous network outages. Rim is still attempting to recover from a bruised reputation because of these instances.

A Canadian company Blackberry has seen their usership dwindle in recent years even at home.  The descision to move from mainly a business handheld to a more consumer friendly Blackberry has seen dramatic drops in sales of their devices.

BlackBerry’s attempt to break into the tablet market also failed miserably as the limited application selection led consumers to go elsewhere with their purchases.

When Balsillie left the company last year, the BlackBerry maker was in the  middle of the most uncertain period in its history.

The recent release of the BlackBerry 10 has seen the stock rebound, but its stabitility remains uncertain as initial sales figures have yet to be released.