Well now, this call turned out to be much more interesting than I expected. First, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie has just announced that he and partner Mike Lazaridis will be cutting their annual salaries down to $1.
According to Forbes, both men currently receive $1,175,664 per year. While they don’t appear to receive annual bonuses, they both receive restricted stock awards, although the terms under which those stocks can vest are unknown. → Read More
RIM has just released their Q3 earnings, and the figures are about as rough as we expected: the Waterloo-based company pulled in $5.2 billion during the past quarter — a considerable bump over their Q2 performance, but still a 6% drop year-over-year. → Read More
Indonesia’s telecoms regulatory agency, the BTRI, has told the Jakarta Post that they may have to shut down RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger and Internet services after the company declined to establish BBM servers within the country. RIM opted to put its servers in neighboring Singapore, for reasons not described in the article. BTRI says it must do this because “the data exchanged is not safe.”
Anyone can see through this transparent excuse for bullying RIM — they’re not the first to try it. Saudi Arabia and India recently made similar threats, though they were more forthcoming about their reasons. They wanted the power to monitor the transmissions, and chances are Indonesia does too. → Read More
Just days after RIM unveiled the BBX platform at BlackBerry DevCon, they were served legal papers from a New Mexico-based software development company named Basis over the BBX name. News on that front has been quiet recently, but last night the U.S. Federal Court in Albuquerque forced RIM to raise their white flag and change their new OS’s name in time for DevCon Asia.
Their new choice? BlackBerry 10. Thrilling. → Read More
RIM has announced that it will be taking over half a billion dollars in charges related to two major failures this fiscal year. First is the immense overproduction of the Playbook tablet, the writedown of which inventory amounted to $485M on its own, or $360M after tax. The second charge is related to the prolonged network outage in early October, though it’s unclear whether that money is directly related or being reserved for dealing with ongoing costs like lawsuits.
Sales of handsets and services were as forecasted, but a lack of growth must be inferred by their waning market share, and at any rate the sales weren’t enough to put RIM at their expected revenue of $5.3 billion for the upcoming quarter. Quarterly earnings are at a level with guidance and predictions of around $1.20 per share, but yearly earnings will miss the expected $5.25 per share, and analysts are calling for as little as $3.50. → Read More
We’ve gotten a few discrete glances as what could be RIM’s first next-generation BlackBerry in the past, and now we may have a name to go with it. Originally code-named “London,” BlackBerryOS reports that the BBX-powered device will henceforth be known as the “Surfboard.”
Erm, yeah. I”m not thrilled either.
As odd as the name may be, it doesn’t come completely out of the blue. RIM filed for the BlackBerry Surfboard trademark in the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in July 2010, and has been sitting on it since then. → Read More
Though I’m fairly sure that I disagree with him, Laszlo Birinyi of Birinyi Associates had some flattering compliments to lay on RIM today, putting the Waterloo-based company at the top spot of his five investment picks for 2012.
While we don’t usually cover analyst predictions, this statement reported by Barrons was too good to resist. → Read More
Research In Motion this morning introduced a new enterprise mobility solution dubbed BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, aiming to help its business and government clients manage employees’ smartphones and tablets running the BlackBerry operating system, but also Android and iOS devices like the iPhone and the iPad.
Currently in early beta testing with a limited number of enterprise customers, RIM expects to kick off a closed beta program in January 2012, with general availability scheduled for late March 2012 (pricing unknown). → Read More
One of the primary criticisms of the BlackBerry PlayBook, and rightly so, was the omission of native email, contacts, and calendar applications. It was troubling then that they hadn’t considered these primary activities as important to address natively, and it’s troubling that it has taken then so very long deliver these elementary functions.
RIM originally said these reviews weren’t “fair,” but regardless of the quality of the OS and the device itself (both of which seem perfectly fine), it’s criminal to subject your loyal users to such a long wait for an email client competitive with Apple and Google. But at least the apps are being finalized, and were just showed off at the BlackBerry Innovation Forum. → Read More
It’s a fact of life for many a new smartphone on the market: the impressive sales seen at launch and during the first few weeks will inevitably taper off. RIM’s new line of BlackBerrys may have already blown through that initial grace period, if RBC Capital Market’s Mike Abramsky is to be believed. Abramsky noted to investors this morning that BlackBerry sales have begun to slow down as RIM heads into the holiday season. → Read More
I wasn’t surprised to hear that both Sony and RIM are spiraling into market irrelevancy. It’s been an inevitability since about 2009 that Sony would see declining fortunes and it’s been clear for months that RIM is near death. I’m just sad to see both of them go.
Sony is losing because it lost the popular imagination. Once upon a time, Sony build solid, popular products for the world. However, with the rise of mobile technology and the ridiculous Sony Ericsson partnership that effectively hobbled Sony in the cellphone race, Sony lost much of its cachet and could make its money in what folks would term “CE” – TVs, sound systems, and the like – leaving little else in terms of high-turnaround items with an acceptable (but not amazing) margin like laptops, phones, and media players.
→ Read More
With BBM Music, RIM has thrown their hat into the already crowded mobile music ring. The new service’s focus on leveraging your social connections to score some new tunes is a novel twist, but it begs a significant question. Why would RIM release an ostensibly limited music service when you can shell out a few extra dollars a month for unlimited access? → Read More
Alright BlackBerry fans, the time has come for you to experience BBM Music.
If you haven’t heard of it yet, it’s a somewhat inexplicable music subscription service that integrates BBM. As of yet, the app has only been available to beta zone members, but today the app went live in the BlackBerry App World for all to enjoy.
And by all, I mean users in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. → Read More
Despite RIM’s successive screw-ups (including a massive server outage that left thousands of customers without BBM or internet service… twice), there are still some hardcore BlackBerry fans out there. If you’re one of them, feel free to breathe a sigh of relief because the only news I bring you today is the announcement of three new BlackBerry models for AT&T: the BlackBerry Bold 9900, the BlackBerry Torch 9860, and the BlackBerry Curve 9360.
Then again, it’s not even noon yet. → Read More
I promise I’ll stop harping on RIM for a while, but I couldn’t resist — the BlackBerry Porsche P’9981‘s product page has gone live, and it affords us several new looks at the silliest-looking RIM device in recent memory. → Read More
We’ve already gotten a glimpse of what Microsoft hopes the future will look like, but how about a different take? PocketNow was able to dig up a pair of videos created by RIM that offers yet another glimpse at our device-driven tomorrow. → Read More
Sorry RIM, but it looks like the promise of free apps and tech support weren’t enough to assuage the masses. According to the Financial Post, RIM is preparing to deal with a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Canadian users affected by the company’s widespread service outage. → Read More
BBM Music has been keeping a low profile since it was announced last August, but a recently leaked image indicates that it may soon see the light of day. Crackberry got their hands on what appears to be a Best Buy Canada circular that touts both the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and RIM’s strangely social music service. → Read More
In a high-profile departure, Tyler Lessard quit his job as VP of BlackBerry Global Alliances & Developer Relations at Research in Motion (RIM) at the end of last month. He worked at RIM, a sinking ship, for over a decade.
He’s now landed at mobile risk management company Fixmo, the company announced this morning. → Read More
According to a recent statement from RIM, business customers who aren’t completely satisfied with their BlackBerrys must be working with outdated hardware. Their answer to these customers’ woes? Just get a new BlackBerry.
My response? Make them want one. → Read More
