BrainBank: You Can't Handle the Internet Edition

File this under "oh snap": Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM (the company that makes those BlackBerry things you may have heard of) delivered quite the burn in response to the issue of companies banning BlackBerrys. "[If] they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off."

Mr. Lazaridis notes that "a lot of these people don't have Ph.Ds, and they don't have a degree in computer science." Lacking these, you can't understand the concept of this Internet thing and you're clearly not qualified to ban an internet-viewing product, Various Countries.

For serious, though, he's basically saying that the issue is not about BlackBerrys but about the Internet in general; these countries want to monitor BlackBerry services, and that's akin to monitoring the Internet. Which as certain countries have demonstrated (cough China cough, cough Australia cough) is not cool.

Protecting your business interests or not, rock on, Mike Lazaridis.