Sorry RIM, it looks like yesterday’s stock bump may be all you get out of these acquisition rumors.
After a note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek recently pointed to the possibility of Samsung either licensing RIM’s nascent BlackBerry 10 platform or acquiring the company outright, Reuters reported earlier today that the Korean electronics giant hasn’t considered either option.
If this all… → Read More
RIM is in trouble and is seemingly finally listening to reason. Speaking to The Telegraph, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked about how RIM could go about licensing its next-gen BlackBerry platform. But that’s assuming manufacturers like Samsung or Sony would actually want to build a BlackBerry 10 device.
Heins’ comments show once again that RIM is exploring all the options for the ailing company. → Read More
FCC filings, leaked roadmaps, and comments from RIM’s top brass all pointed to the existence of an LTE-capable BlackBerry PlayBook — the only question left was when the thing would finally launch. The answer, according to a new statement released by RIM, is very soon.
RIM’s LTE PlayBook will launch in Canada on August 9 (with support from a handful of Canadian carriers), where it will remain… → Read More
Blackberry’s future is the tech debate du jour, with pundits on either side promising either a BB10 renaissance or a slow-motion tailspin. While the jury was still out, we had a few moments to speak with RIM CEO Thorsten Heins about RIM’s way forward and where BB10 was going to put the company when it launches.
He was unsurprisingly forthright and more than accommodating even when we asked him… → Read More
And RIM’s rough ride continues. Within the past few weeks, the Canadian company has had to announce all sorts of bad news, and now RIM has been dealt an expensive defeat in court to add that list.
Bloomberg reported late yesterday that RIM must now shell out nearly $150 million in order to settle a patent suit with a New Jersey-based mobile device management company called Mformation. → Read More
Nielsen released another of their periodic looks at the U.S. smartphone market today, and aside from the revelation that two-thirds of U.S. phone purchasers went for smartphones in Q2 2012, the results are as you’d expect.
Android still leads the pack in terms of pure penetration — as of this past June, it accounts for 51.8% of smartphones in use (up from 50.4% in Q1 2012) with Apple’s iOS… → Read More
Research in Motion (RIM) is investing $100 million to grow the developer community for the BlackBerry platform, according to e27, a blog covering the Asia tech scene.
The immediate question that comes to mind: “Is it too late?” RIM is trying to save $1 billion after losing 95% of its market share since 1998. It has even started liquidating with reports that it is selling its jet to cut down its… → Read More
Of all the disappointing details heard during RIM’s most recent earnings call, the company’s decision to push back the launch of its first BlackBerry 10 devices was among the most devastating to the company’s loyal legion of fans.
Bummer though it may be, we may now have a clearer view of RIM’s hardware plans for the next year thanks to a newly-leaked roadmap obtained by BlackBerryOS. → Read More
There’s been plenty said about RIM since it released its rough fiscal financials a few days ago, just about all of it negative. It’s hard not to be, honestly — the company reported its first operating loss in eight years, announced that a full 5,000 employees would be getting the axe, and topped it all off by revealing that the first BlackBerry 10 devices wouldn’t hit the market until the… → Read More
It’s been a bleak call, thus far.
We just heard on RIM’s Q1 2013 earnings call that the Waterloo-based company only shipped 7.8 million smartphones this quarter, which is down 30 percent from 11.1 million units shipped last quarter. → Read More
Today on RIM’s Q1 2013 conference call, CEO Thorsten Heins admitted that “this was a challenging quarter for the company,” but announced 78 million subscribers with “churn remaining high.” He admitted particular success with the BlackBerry Bold product.
For a little context, RIM hit 70 million global subscribers all the way back in September of 2011. → Read More
RIM has just released their fiscal Q1 2013 financials, and they’re about as bleak as the company expected. The Canadian company reported a net GAAP loss of $518 million (which breaks down to $0.99/share diluted) on revenues of $2.8 billion.
To put that in a bit of perspective, RIM reported a net loss of $0.24/share diluted (or $125 million) on $4.2 billion in revenues in Q4 2012. Meanwhile… → Read More
To say that RIM has a lot riding on their new BlackBerry 10 platform is a hell of an understatement, but to date the company has generally kept quiet on what consumers can expect from their first BlackBerry 10 devices.
As anticipation builds for a launch slated for later this year, N4BB has gotten their hands on an internal slide that reveals a few new details about RIM’s first BlackBerry 10… → Read More
Rumors and reports of layoffs at RIM have been swirling around for weeks now, and now the Waterloo company has confirmed what we all expected — they’re letting people go in an effort as part of their bid to save $1 billion by 2013.
Unsurprisingly, RIM’s stock has taken a tumble this morning — at time of writing, their stock price has dipped nearly 5% from its position when market opened. → Read More
Canada-based Celestica announced plans today to “wind down” manufacturing services for Research in Motion over the next three to six months. More details will come next month during Celestica’s second-quarter conference call, but this comes as a direct result of RIM’s downturn. The two Canadian companies worked closely together in the past and Celestica is likely looking to sever ties before… → Read More
For all its (largely software-based) shortcomings, RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook really isn’t that bad a tablet, even if RIM ended up losing a fair bit of money on some of them.
This past weekend, a user named BusinessCat2000 posted a video (see above) of his PlayBook running a slew of iOS apps on the CrackBerry forums. Jaws dropped, legality was questioned, advice was thrown around, but the feat… → Read More
The RIM PlayBook by just received a developers update that adds some interesting new Android functionality to RIM’s tablet. This new version now supports Android apps running in their own windows, improving compatibility with the general Android app universe. → Read More
After a rough day yesterday, RIM’s stock opened 10 percent lower today, trading at $10.05 at the opening bell. The stock price briefly recovered but it’s on a steady downward trend as of the writing of this post. If this slide continues, the stock is set to hit a low not seen since 2003.
Trading of RIM shares was halted for 15 minutes yesterday in order to issue a what the company called a “… → Read More
Canadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has briefly ceased trading of their stock today in order to issue a “business update” from CEO Thorsten Heins to their stockholders.
Though the release takes the time to outline some of the company’s recent personnel changes, Heins also points out that the company has enlisted the services of both the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to help the company… → Read More
There goes another one — RIM announced today that Chief Legal Officer Karima Bawa will soon be leaving the company. This is RIM’s second major departure in as many weeks, with RIM sales head Patrick Spence leaving the ailing smartphone maker last Wednesday.
At the time, sources pointed to audio electronics company Sonos as his likely landing spot, though neither Spence nor Sonos have… → Read More
In one of the most anticlimactic (and likely ineffective) marketing campaigns in history, RIM has today launched its “Wake Up. Be Bold.” campaign in Australia. It began with a group of “protestors” disembarking from a bus outside of Apple’s Sydney store with signs that read “Wake Up.” But don’t get too excited — that’s the most exciting part of the story.
After the long and vigorous… → Read More
At RIM’s keynote earlier this week, CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled a brand new camera app that will ship along with BlackBerry 10. It was quite impressive. It basically lets you snap a pic, select a subject’s face, and sift through frames captured before the moment you pressed the shutter button to make sure everyone looks their best. Perhaps the person on the left had a huge, wonderful smile while… → Read More
Just because the first day of BlackBerry World is over doesn’t mean we mobile geeks have run out of BlackBerry-related tidbits to pick apart.
Oh, far from it — in fact, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins took the stage (again) earlier today for a long-running chat with the press, and he has since outed a few juicy new details about the company’s strategy going forward.
First, let’s take a quick look… → Read More
RIM is keeping the PlayBook party going. While speaking at a BlackBerry World breakfast with RIM CEO Thorsten Heins stated the company plans to launch an LTE-enabled PlayBook by the end of the year. However, the CEO didn’t detail the projected release date, price or available wireless carrier.
This is a smart move for RIM. Rather than spending the time and resources producing another tablet… → Read More
With the release of their BlackBerry 10 beta development tools and Dev Alpha devices earlier today, RIM has made it very clear that they want to build up as much developer love as possible before BlackBerry 10 officially launches.
Well, as it turns out, that’s not the only thing they’re doing to attract devs. Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP of Developer Relations, revealed at BlackBerry World that RIM… → Read More
Remember that retro time-defying camera app that RIM unveiled alongside a few other BB10 features? You should — it happened this morning.
Well, it would seem that the ability to search back through frames captured before the actual moment you pushed the shutter button has already been done. Nope, not by Apple. Not by Motorola, HTC, Samsung, or Nokia either.
It’s been done by Scalado… → Read More
Even though we still don’t know when RIM will get around to launching it, CEO Thorsten Heins gave us a few brief glimpses at what BlackBerry 10 would be able to do during his keynote address at the BlackBerry World conference.
But what’s that? You missed the keynote? Well, just for you, here’s the video that Heins played during his time on stage that shows off what the company’s forthcoming… → Read More
Today is BlackBerry Jam, RIM’s developer conference or WWDC equivalent. It’s RIM’s moment to redefine, rejuvenate, and re-establish itself in the world. Whether or not the company can pull it off, however, is an entirely different matter.
BlackBerry 10, RIM’s brand new platform, has been delayed, run into naming issues, and seen the transfer of power go from the company’s co-founders, Jim… → Read More
As it stands, most of BlackBerry 10 is still shrouded in mystery. Not even the Dev Alpha devices that will be made available to developers offer a glimpse of RIM’s new software — they’re running a modified version of the PlayBook OS instead.
All that said, RIM hopes to whet our appetites with glimpses at some of the nifty little touches that BlackBerry 10 will sport when it sees a widespread… → Read More
RIM has caught plenty of flack these past few months, thanks to (among other things) a multi-day global outage, disappointing PlayBook sales, and a dramatic management shake-up. Beyond all of this, the news that their next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system wouldn’t see the light of day until the latter parts of 2012 seemed like yet another nail in RIM’s coffin.
But the beleaguered… → Read More
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