The news from Canada, and Research In Motion, isn’t so good for the company’s employees who might soon find themselves without jobs because of the companies latest troubles. While they are still increasing sales and making profits, growth is way behind the curve. And, no, I do not wish unemployment on people. I’ve been there a few times in my life, and it’s nothing less than a downright miserable, humiliating experience.

So far is RIM is concerned, the troubled BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, despite a large marketing campaign, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Yes, RIM claims to have shipped 500,000 copies in the first few weeks on sale, but that doesn’t necessarily mean 500,000 people are actually buying them. Besides, the figure is dwarfed by Apple’s ability to deliver millions and millions of iPads into the hands of customers over the same period.

The real issue here is whether anyone cares about the PlayBook, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy, or any other would-be entrant into the alleged tablet marketplace. But the real question, one that CNET belatedly discovered, is that, for all intents and purposes, the iPad is the tablet market. Period.

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While there is surely lots of anticipation about the next iPhone, and even perhaps the iPad 3, though it may nine or ten months away, I wonder about the pent-up excitement over that expected MacBook Air revision. Sure, the MacBook Air, resurrected from relative obscurity with a smart refresh last year, has been a shining light in Apple’s portable computer sales, probably more than anyone expected. But is a new version sufficient to cause excitement?

In fact, I was a tad skeptical over the prospects for success simply because of what the Air sacrifices. There’s no built-in optical drive, Ethernet is an optional connector, and you cannot even upgrade RAM and storage without replacing the main logic board, or engaging in a seriously awkward parts swap that involves the careful use of solder. It’s an ultimate computing appliance that, like the iPhone or iPad, requires you to buy the configuration you want on Day One, knowing that it is not likely to be changed later.

The rumors of the 2011 revision have it that Apple will switch to Intel’s speedier and more power efficient Sandy Bridge chips, which have passable graphics capability. More than likely, there will be a Thunderbolt port as well, which will open up all sorts of compelling expansion possibilities that you ordinarily wouldn’t expect from such a thin and light note-book. Beyond that, I’d hope Apple would increase standard RAM to 4GB, and maybe even afford you the opportunity to change it out if you wish to 8GB. But Apple’s eternal quest for miniaturization, not to mention a case unsullied by trap doors, may make it difficult to provide space for a proper set of removable RAM slots that can be easily accessed.

Regardless, most people probably won’t notice significant performance differences without a stop watch, meaning that the upgrade won’t set the tech world afire. So expectations shouldn’t be terribly high, even though speculation is fun.

At the same time, maybe I’m underestimating the potential. The last refreshes for the MacBook Pro and the iMac delivered compelling speed boosts. A fully decked out 27-inch iMac, customized with the Intel i7 processor, a second drive (solid state), and extra RAM, is a box that, in many respects, rivals the speediest Mac Pro costing twice as much. Once my ship comes in, I might even consider one, even though I am getting perfectly satisfactory performance from my late 2009 model with a previous generation Intel i7, the first one to incorporate the current form factor.

What this means is that there’s loads of potential with the current Mac designs to continue to make healthy improvements in performance and perhaps other goodies once or twice a year. It may even help speed up upgrade cycles, which will certainly deliver huge benefits to Apple’s bottom line, and that’s in addition to all those Windows users who continue to flock to the Mac.

I also wonder about the fate of the plain old MacBook. Is the Air meant to completely supplant that model, or will Apple give it a basic shave and haircut and keep it going? I surely expect a new Mac mini which, with Intel Sandy Bridge chips, and perhaps a solid state drive option, will deliver incredible levels of performance for such a tiny box. The Mac Pro will probably also receive a near-term upgrade, and some suspect the case will be slimmed and rearranged somewhat, so it can be hooked into the larger slot on a server rack. Indeed, since Apple is offering the Server version of Lion, an unlimited edition, as a downloadable $49.99 upgrade, this might be a reasonable way to actually replace the late Xserve.

At the same time, a new report suggests that Apple isn’t going to release any Mac upgrades until after Lion ships next month. That way, they don’t have to fuss with fulfilling extra free update orders, and buyers won’t have to concern themselves about installing a major OS upgrade only a few days, or weeks, after spending lots of money on the latest and greatest Mac. I suppose that makes a whole lot of sense, particularly if sales of the current models are moving along at a pretty good clip.

And, by the way, if you bought a new Mac on or after June 6, 2011, you’ll be able to get Lion anyway, free, although $29.99 is a fairly trivial expense as far as OS upgrades go. My real concern is the people who are not going to be able to conveniently download the Lion installer, because they have Internet performance and/or bandwidth constraints, or they never upgraded to Snow Leopard. I still think Apple needs to sort out that dilemma with a retail version containing physical media. Even if the number of Mac users eligible to install Lion, and who aren’t using Mac OS 10.6, might be relatively small in the scheme of things, I suspect the number has to be in the millions.

Or maybe Apple hopes that, in fleshing out the Mac hardware lineup over the next month or two, the new machines will be so compelling that users of older Macs will be only too happy to buy them.

In a world where Steve Jobs is king of the hill CEO-wise, it’s common to believe that one person may be indispensable to a company. When that person departs, everything falls apart in their wake. How can it be otherwise?

Yet many large multinational corporations have survived and flourished after the departures — or death — of one or more of their founders. But one of the most important jobs of a corporate leader is to devise a proper succession plan, knowing nothing is forever. It’s not the same as, say, a popular TV show, where the program often lives or dies by its star, particularly if that star has the title role. You know, for example, that “House” would have no future when actor Hugh Laurie decides it’s time to say goodbye, and don’t get me started about Charlie Sheen and his sitcom, since a replacement has been selected.

Perhaps a properly managed corporation is closer in concept to the “Law & Order” TV shows, where, at least for the original and now cancelled version, performers came and went and yet the show went on. That hasn’t been quite as true with the spin-offs.

In any case, when Apple hired retail executive Ron Johnson to help establish a chain of retail stores, the skeptics couldn’t see it. Hadn’t Gateway tried that scheme with no success whatever? Of course, over a decade later, we know that the Apple Store is one of the great success stories in retail history. Before coming to Apple, Johnson had worked at other chains, including Target, where he made the stores move upscale with more fashionable merchandise. With him long gone, in fact, Target is now struggling once again to find its identity.

So after earning millions from Apple, possessing more money than any one person or even a large family could possibly need for a long lifetime, Johnson will attempt to remake the moribund J.C. Penney chain. These days, department stores are largely indistinguishable, with few exceptions. I mean, I can walk into a Dillards, and then a Macy’s, and hardly know I’m actually in a different store. Will J.C. Penney truly stand out from the crowd after receiving the Ron Johnson treatment?

And unlike Apple, he won’t have a charismatic, mercurial CEO to answer to. He will be the CEO, and, for better or worse, will be responsible for how J.C. Penney fares in the retail marketplace. I suppose this is the sort of challenge few executives could pass up, assuming they are given the talent and tools to make magic happen.

But the Apple Stores are not going to suddenly flounder without Johnson’s day-to-day influence. Certainly Steve Jobs has always played a huge part in how the chain was created and developed, and there are loads of talented employees with retail backgrounds that direct the worldwide operations. Assuming Johnson was the proper manager, he helped recruit a staff of people who shared his vision and, upon his departure, would continue to do what’s best to grow the chain and keep the stores prosperous.

Sure, I suppose things might take a turn for the worse, but I’m skeptical. I’d be far more concerned about what happens to Apple when Steve Jobs finally decides to get out of the rat race for good — for whatever reason — and even then, he is clearly smart enough to have done his best to make sure his successors will continue to run Apple in accordance with his vision.

You’ll notice, also, that Apple’s stock price wasn’t seriously hurt by the news of Johnson’s departure, whereas J.C. Penney’s stock went up. I can’t think of anyone who commenced to moan about the fate of the poor Apple Store chain without Johnson around. So long as Steve Jobs and other executives continue to micromanage every little thing, including cable sizes and other fine details, there should be no worries.

Looking at other companies, even if, as some people hope, Steve Ballmer leaves the CEO post at Microsoft, that inefficient, committee-ridden corporate dinosaur isn’t necessarily going to change that much, at least in the beginning. Change you can believe in would depend highly on the abilities of Ballmer’s successor to make the proper personnel changes, and somehow move the corporate battleship in a direction where the past can be appropriately left behind without endangering profitability.

The situation might be quite different over at RIM, whose co-CEOs not only couldn’t decide how to divide their duties into different jobs, but clearly have an inability to coherently express a proper vision for the company. Sure, they have done quite a few things right, witness the fact that the BlackBerry was synonymous with the word “smartphone” until the iPhone arrived and played spoiler.

It’s also true that RIM appears to be in trouble, with flattening sales, and, so far at least, a failed tablet strategy. Maybe that’s the company where an executive shakeup is sorely needed.

So as we reported over the weekend, Apple is being sued for trademark infringement over the use of the iCloud name by a Phoenix-based VoIP provider known as iCloud Communications. The action is curious, since Apple s said to have already paid for the icloud.com domain and U.S. trademark in a transaction with Xcerion of Sweden, the apparent owner of both.

Are you with me so far?

Thus, you have to wonder how iCloud Communications, if they are not the actual trademark owners, were somehow allowed to continue to use that name. Or maybe they didn’t draw enough attention to themselves, since they are, despite what you’ve heard, mostly providing something other than what most people regard as cloud-based storage. Sure, VoIP uses the Internet, and a bank of servers to manage the system, but the that’s not the same as providing cloud-based storage, backup, syncing and streaming services. On the other hand, it appears do run their own data centers, so they say, where they offer both Web hosting and colocation, the latter allowing you to have your own server installed at their site. That’s likely where the confusion might arise, although Apple’s iCloud features seem sufficiently different to avoid any possible confusion.

Unfortunately, it appears that almost none of the stories I’ve seen on the subject cover much beyond the filings and a few related issues. You’d think that the significance of this lawsuit is sufficient to warrant a little leg work, or at the very least, a casual visit to geticloud.com, the site run by iCloud Communications. If they bothered, they’d see that the possibility of confusing Apple’s iCloud with them is just about zero. Besides, if they aren’t asserting a trademark on the site with the appropriate registration symbols next to the name, and another company already sold that trademark to Apple, what right do they have to claim ownership of the iCloud name?

So maybe the name was registered with the state in which the company was incorporated, which would, say, prevent someone else from using the name iCloud in that state.

Since I wanted to see what really was going on, I searched for the iCloud trademark at the Arizona Secretary of State’s site, and came up with an Articles of Organization document dated May 9, 2011, for an iCloud Networks LLC. That company has the same address as iCloud Communications, so it is most likely the same firm.

That filing is curious, because iCloud Communications’ complaint claims they’ve used the name since 2005, and, as I mentioned in a previous column, the site boasts of a “25-year track record” and then, a few paragraphs later, a “20-year track record” in providing telephone-related services. They also claim to have been formed in 1985, meaning 26 years, although perhaps the anniversary date isn’t at hand. If you’re confused over these different dates, let me assure you that I am as well. I’m also concerned that the media didn’t do their due diligence to learn something about this company before publishing the story.

Now operating without a registered trade name isn’t a crime, so long as the company has the appropriate licenses to do business. But claiming to own a trademark without evidence will do nothing but add another logjam to the already backed up Federal courts. It will, I suppose, result in some nice paydays for a few lawyers, and, I suppose there’s always the hope on the part of the plaintiff that Apple will toss some cash the way of iCloud Communications to make them go away.

At the same time, such an action carries a high risk. Apple could just as well go to the mat and force the complainant to run through loads of cash before giving up. Or file a counter action that would possibly prevent use of the name iCloud under any circumstance.

But please realize that I’m only coming to these conclusions based on the evidence readily available online. It is quite possible iCloud Communications does have a genuine U.S. trademark to assert, even though that information doesn’t seem to be available at their site.

What makes situations of this sort even more confusing is that there may be an iCloud company of some sort in any or all of the other 49 states. Most may lie under the radar, although you’d think Apple would have examined corporate filings in search of a conflict. Then again, if iCloud Communications, or, rather, iCloud Networks LLC, never registered the name until after Apple acquired the iCloud trademark, the case is open and shut.

My real concern, however, is the way the media often limits coverage of what may be an important story to quoting a press release without comment, or just summarizing a legal filing. If that’s supposed to be what journalism stands for in the 21st century, perhaps I’m in the wrong business. But I’m not giving up — at least not yet.