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RIM called a 'one-trick pony,' company's 'nightmare' seen as benefit to Apple - Page 2

post #41 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

Because its a BlackBerry. They have a strong brand in the business world. Many of my classmates in business school bought blackberries over iPhones and Androids just because they were blackberries and business people use blackberries.

Ah yes. MBA types.
True visionaries. Think I'll take my lead from them.
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post #42 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:29am
I found a transcript of their call. It's priceless:

"The BlackBerry was the number one smartphone in several countries in March and April including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia..."
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post #43 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chabig View Post

I found a transcript of their call. It's priceless:

"The BlackBerry was the number one smartphone in several countries in March and April including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia..."

They got THAT goin' for them.
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post #44 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elijahg View Post

So RIM have a time machine too? Why are they running a year ahead?

When a corporation is set up they can define their fiscal year as they want -- usually for tax purposes.

Here's a quote from Mike Scott, "Scottie", on why Apple set up its fiscal year to end in September.

Quote:
Yeah, we paid of all our loans and at that time, made the decision to that was the time to choose when to end our first fiscal year. We made our first $50,000 in profit and paid taxes on that, so you're able to go forward estimating the amount of taxes you are willing to pay is equal to your previous year, so we were able to save a year in taxes forward as we continued to grow. That year ending was for tax planning, and not for anything else.

Interview With Apple's First CEO Michael Scott
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
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"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
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post #45 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy View Post

i have to carry a cheap BB Curve for work. can't do much with it but the plastic is strong. never had a case for it, dropped it many times on concrete and other hard surfaces and it only has a few scratches. my iphones and ipads would never survive that. they might be pretty but the cheap plastic is a lot stronger than glass

So, secure e-mail, and durable enough to be used as a weaponyou know, in case you find yourself in a dark alley with a gaggle of nefarious types who wish you harm.*

* Don't try this with your iPad or iPhone!
"Don't be a dick!"Wil Wheaton
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post #46 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

Assume that they're shopping for a partner/parent, who might be interested?

Microsoft
Nokia
Apple
Oracle

Anybody I missed?

Maybe Lenovo. As somebody mentioned, they bought IBM's ThinkPad business, and they've joined the Android crowd but I don't think they've had any really noteworthy success with that yet.
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post #47 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:49am
How about Kellogg's, for their Blackberry Pop Tarts.
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post #48 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elijahg View Post

So RIM have a time machine too? Why are they running a year ahead?

Quote:
Originally Posted by IQatEdo View Post

In some countries such as Canada, Australia and Japan, the financial year runs over 12 months from a date other than January first. This moves the often considerable burden of financial reporting for companies and personal income tax assessment for individuals away from the festive season. In Canada, the financial year runs April 1 - March 31, Australia July 1 - June 30 etc. Clever.

All the best.

Moreover, corporate fiscal years can arbitrarily set. Oracle's year ends on May 31. Google's year ends on December 31. Microsoft's year ends on June 30.

Apple's fiscal year ends on the last Saturday of September (not the last day of the month unless the 30th falls on a Saturday). All of Apple's quarters are exactly thirteen weeks long, except for the odd year when one quarter will have an extra week.

I think Dell does a similar thing to Apple (thirteen week quarters), however Dell's year ends on the last Saturday in January.
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post #49 of 115
6/17/11 at 8:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by al_bundy View Post

i have to carry a cheap BB Curve for work. can't do much with it but the plastic is strong. never had a case for it, dropped it many times on concrete and other hard surfaces and it only has a few scratches. my iphones and ipads would never survive that. they might be pretty but the cheap plastic is a lot stronger than glass

Yeah, I still use the one my company gave me in 2005, and the only mark on the thing is a notch on the side from when I tried to use it to open a beer. Oops. Otherwise, it has proven extremely durable.

I could have "upgraded" it for free at any point int he last 4 years, but it has an LCD screen that doesn't require backlight to be seen, so I can glance over at it and check my e-mail without even touching it. It looks ridiculously retro, but none of the newer features trump that for me, since I use my iPhone for everything except my work e-mail.
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post #50 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

Assume that they're shopping for a partner/parent, who might be interested?

Microsoft
Nokia
Apple
Oracle

Anybody I missed?

Well, the most obvious one is Dell, who has big business presence, yet none in telecommunications. They've had a number of failed forays into handheld devices.

The other big player you left off the list was HP, although they would be less likely to buy RIM since they have Palm.

Lenovo as mentioned above. And possibly Asus or Acer.
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post #51 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Constable Odo View Post

I'm almost willing to bet that Apple's share price won't be helped favorably by this news. I'll bet that Wall Street will see the fall of RIM to be a bigger boost to Android smartphones and Google will get the benefit. <clip>

Please do tell why Google would benefit? They only make money from ads and nothing else. RIM losing market share does nothing to benefit more ads being seen by Android devices.

I don't think either Apple or Google's share price will reflect RIM dying or being sold off.... which I predicted here at AI at the beginning of the year. I'm making a small killing at the moment shorting RIM since Feb., but the slaughter comes around Nov.-Dec.... latest Q1-2012.

I'm tellin' ya... RIM as they stand today are done for. Let's just say a birdy told me
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post #52 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:03am
I think RIM could actually be an acquisition target for Apple.

Think about it. Anybody who was looking to buy RIM wouldn't be looking to buy their hardware or software assets or their talent. Their CEOs would be out, their engineers have proven incapable of creating a modern OS in a timely fashion, none of those assets are worth purchasing for any company. So anybody considering buying RIM would be doing it for their enterprise customers and solutions. There are a lot of companies that are supporting Blackberry and there are a lot of customers locked into RIM's services.

Who'd be in the best position to take advantage of that? Apple would. Apple has an integrated solution. They could buy RIM, kill Blackberry OS, kill the Playbook, kill all future hardware, but integrate iMessage with BBM and support RIM's existing server-side enterprise software. They could tell all companies using Blackberries now to switch to iPhones. I think most people would actually be happy to switch to iPhones if the iPhone supported all of the Blackberries existing infrastructure. The only other company that could really do this is HP but I think they'd have a much harder time with it.

The real question is whether it'd be worth the cost. RIM has a market cap of $14 billion. Is their customer base worth $14 billion? At this point, in terms of acquisition, I think RIM's OS, hardware and most of its talent is essentially worthless. So any company would only be paying for their enterprise customers and solutions. $14 billion is probably too much for anyone to pay for that. But if RIM keeps stumbling and the market reacts it could become a worthwhile target for acquisition and I think Apple would be best positioned to take advantage.
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post #53 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

Assume that they're shopping for a partner/parent, who might be interested?

Microsoft: MS have made noises about making their own handsets and tablets, this would get them straight in. They could rapidly switch RIM over to Bing to build mobile search market share, and eventually move them over to WP7. It would piss off their partners, but then their partners are already either being strong-armed with license fees or are so desperate that they don't have another option.

Nokia: While the mergers of two drowning firms is never pretty ( HP/Compaq anybody?) this might not be totally doomed. RIM have better software than Nokia (who doesn't?) and a loyal enterprise base. RIM would give Nokia an alternative to WP7, Nokia would give RIM deeper pockets.

Apple: Very unlikely because Apple hasn't done a big transformative merger since it bought NeXT, but not completely impossible. RIM has experience selling to enterprise, which is something that Apple lacks. Apple could rapidly switch over RIM users to iOS if it could just integrate the key security features and secure email services, also RIM would help solidify Apple's position in the patent wars - especially if they manage to acquire the Nortel patents.

Oracle: Now we're entering Sci-Fi territory, but Oracle is a very strange firm and very willing to grow by merger. They are already fighting Android on a java infringement case, and wouldn't be stepping on any significant partners - only HP and they aren't exactly bosom buddies right now anyway. Oracle have wanted a way to break MS's control over the desktop and mobile increasingly looks like a good way to do so, but they have no mobile presence or experience. Oracle CRM tightly integrated to a tablet like the playbook could produce significant sales.

Anybody I missed?

Yes: an investor consortium made up chiefly of Middle-Eastern businesses and Sheiks.

I also have considered MS and Nokia since Feb. They have deep enough pockets, love throwing their money around lately, and would love to lock in the enterprise completely. They're pretty steamed that they don't have an answer to RIM's secure communications/server strategy, so I could see them putting some serious bucks on the table.

MS want's all of the enterprise, since it's the last bastion where they have total control. Not saying for better or for worse. Just fact.
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post #54 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph L View Post

Android is taking sales from RIM, and not from Apple. Apple's sales have not dropped and neither has its market share. They are about the same.

Actually there's no conclusive proof that Android is taking sales from RIM, it may very well be Apple who is. What we do know is that Android is rapidly taking sales from dumb-phones and old legacy smartphone systems like Bada, Symbian etc.

Short of a detailed retail survey that asks customers what they're switching from, to and why all we know are snapshots of the market.

Again I'm gonna link the US comscore results. Notice that Jan->Apr RIM lost handset share in the US but only as much as Samsung lost too. Motorola lost more. So the 'Android is killing RIM story' is plausibly false in the US at least.

People need to stop obsessing about smartphone market share and go back to looking at handset market share.
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post #55 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph L View Post

The iPhone is holding steady. Android is growing fast, but the iPhone is holding steady.

Android is taking sales from RIM, and not from Apple. Apple's sales have not dropped and neither has its market share. They are about the same.

So the real story is that people now think Android is best, but eventually they will figure out how much better the iPhone is, and then the iPhone will start stealing sales from Android and RIM. Count on it. Android is fragmented, and everybody hates it because of that.

Yes... for the consumer market, but not for the enterprise sandbox where RIM is playing.

Dell was someone I didn't consider re: anyone else. I couldn't care less who buys or partners with RIM. I'm having fun pumping up my retirement account at the moment.

Long on Apple, MS, and dare I say Nokia even. Nokia is huge here in Europe and the rest of the world. They'll get it right... sooner or later.

Where as I see i-2-i with the anal-cysts this time around: one-trick pony indeed... I'd liken RIM more to a rocking horse at this point.
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post #56 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:26am
QNX is a nice clean and proven microkernel minus the baggage found in darwin. QNX also has some nice distributed OS features and security to boot (EAL4 vs Mac OS X EAL3).

Aqua is pretty abstracted so it wouldn't be that bad to layer on to QNX.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

No offence but this is nonsense. QNX is a microkernel architecture intended for embedded devices and has little to no advantages over straight Unix in terms of mobile OS's. iOS has one of the most solid, time-tested pure Unix cores to build on with OS-X and wouldn't gain anything by switching to QNX instead.

Also, putting the "pretty GUI on top" is pretty much the entire game. It's taken Apple somewhere between four and eight years to tack the "pretty GUI" onto iOS's kernel. Your suggesting they start all over, but for what?
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post #57 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cvaldes1831 View Post

The other big player you left off the list was HP, although they would be less likely to buy RIM since they have Palm.

That is why I left them out, it just didn't seem likely to play well with investors - 'Hey guys, remember we bought a fading mobile OS? Well we just bought another, but this time it will work out better - we promise!'.

Quote:
Lenovo as mentioned above. And possibly Asus or Acer.

Market Caps:
$7B Lenovo
$6B Asus
$5B Acer

They're all just too small to take on RIM at this point, by the time they could afford it - it won't be worth buying.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post

Yes: an investor consortium made up chiefly of Middle-Eastern businesses and Sheiks.

Well they certainly have the money, but they don't have the will. They tend to be very conservative with their investments, the riskiest that they normally get is Real Estate or a profitable bank that needs a capital infusion. They've got no experience in tech, and I doubt they want to get their feet wet trying to manage a sinking ship. I also excluded the private equity guys for the same reason, RIM would have to drop a lot before they'd get interested.
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post #58 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

<clip>
People need to stop obsessing about smartphone market share and go back to looking at handset market share.

Absolutely correct! Android is the new "feature phone". Period. Nothing more, and actually a lot less when you're talking about the "profit" side of the equation. "Same as it ever was" comes to mind.
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post #59 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firefly7475 View Post

You could almost put Google in the same boat as Rim. Initial reviews of the Android tablet weren't exactly what you would call favorable. Google seems to get a bit more leeway though.

Google gets more leeway because if the Android tablets don't succeed, it isn't going to dramatically affect them as a company. They are still the default search engine on everything except Microsoft products, including iOS, Blackberry, WebOS, etc. Now, if, say, Bing were to take a commanding market share in search, or even eat away at Google's share, then we could worry about Google.

Bottom line, Google doesn't need Android tablets, or even phones for the matter, to succeed in order to be successful. If RIM's hardware doesn't sell, they are doomed as a company.
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post #60 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elijahg View Post

So RIM have a time machine too? Why are they running a year ahead?

RIMM is not running a year ahead. They are just not on a calendar fiscal year. Their fiscal year starts on March 1st. So for 2011, their fiscal year ended on the last day of Feb 2011. Their 2012 fiscal year will end on the last day of February 2012. Their 1st quarter of 2012 ended on the last day of May 2011 and was reported in June 2011. Nothing mystical about it. It is just the time period they selected as their fiscal year. Don't know why, and don't care. There is enough to bash RIMM about without focusing on why they chose the fiscal year that they did. Move on.
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post #61 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph L View Post

I think the results are pretty clear. RIM, M$ and Palm all down. Most of their customers are sucked up by Google, who grew 5.2.

Again I repeat - you are looking at the wrong numbers, you are looking at the smartphone share and you should be looking at the handset share. Android is rapidly winning out over dumb-phones and is driving huge numbers of consumers into the smartphone segment, but that's not the same thing as driving consumers off their old smartphones onto Android.

Suppose tomorrow everybody with a dumb-phone got handed a free android smartphone. That would give android a HUGE increase in their share, and RIM a commensurate decrease in the smartphone share but would it have any impact on RIM's business - no it wouldn't.

One last time in the hope that it gets through - stop looking at smartphone share, look at total handset share.
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post #62 of 115
6/17/11 at 9:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chabig View Post

I found a transcript of their call. It's priceless:

"The BlackBerry was the number one smartphone in several countries in March and April including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia..."

BlackBerry is big in those countries because of messaging, which is essentially free with the phone. Cheaper than texting.
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post #63 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by addicted44 View Post

Hmmm....Mac OS X, a stable desktop OS in use for the past 10 years, based on a rock solid BSD platform that has been refined for more than 30 years can learn from QNX, an embedded OS that has never seen a day in a desktop?

I thought you could buy QNX for Intel machines? It's been around, but it's incomplete for smart phone/tablet use. It needs a modern GUI and programming library. Stuff that Apple adapted from Mac OS X.
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post #64 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:05am
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Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post

My late CEO father used to say, in business (and even more so in tech), if you're not growing, you're dying!

Wise words indeed for doing business, yet an argument pointing to the idea that our current economic system is flawed.
Unless only a handful surviving is deemed acceptable, of course.
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post #65 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

As I said before, I think RIM is gonna do just fine because of enterprise users. Sure iPhone now offers the same or even better features, but BB is still a status symbol for a business professional. Therefore, they can stop innovating and there would still be millions of sales in the medium term. I think just like MS RIM can have products be very late to market, and people would still buy them out of habit and because they are "good for business customers".

Sure the stock might take a plunge, but the company won't shut down and will just operate with a lower market cap.

What you are talking about is a slow death.
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post #66 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

[...] Waiting for the QNX operating system to make it to RIM's smartphone is "like waiting for Godot," Wolf said. [...]

It's almost like the Osborne Effect. Pre-announce a product far better than your current product, then watch your sales drop while customers wait for the new product to be released.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

[...] As for the PlayBook and its 500,000 units shipped, RIM did not provide any details on the actual sell-through. [...]

Here we go again with the "shipped" vs. "sold" numbers. It's easy to ship 500k units "quite smoothly." There are lots of big warehouses out there in the supply chain. But selling to actual customers, who pay money for the products, is a different thing entirely.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

[...] White believes that could be a concern for the company in its August quarter, and he does not see the PlayBook making a dent in Apple's iPad sales. [...]

It's been said before, but I'll say it again. There is no "media tablet" market. There is only the iPad market.

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post #67 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke View Post

I think RIM could actually be an acquisition target for Apple. ... The real question is whether it'd be worth the cost. RIM has a market cap of $14 billion. Is their customer base worth $14 billion? At this point, in terms of acquisition, I think RIM's OS, hardware and most of its talent is essentially worthless. So any company would only be paying for their enterprise customers and solutions. $14 billion is probably too much for anyone to pay for that. But if RIM keeps stumbling and the market reacts it could become a worthwhile target for acquisition and I think Apple would be best positioned to take advantage.

The thing is though, if RIM collapses, where are the enterprise customers going to go? The only company that has a drop in product to replace that stuff is Apple.

Apple can do absolutely nothing here, and spend no money at all, and they will still end up with probably 60% or more of RIM's business if RIM goes under.
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post #68 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

The thing is though, if RIM collapses, where are the enterprise customers going to go? The only company that has a drop in product to replace that stuff is Apple.

Apple can do absolutely nothing here, and spend no money at all, and they will still end up with probably 60% or more of RIM's business if RIM goes under.

Except why would RIM go under? RIM is more profitable than Nokia in the handset market, they're nowhere near going under and they can survive handily on just their enterprise customers. If Moto can survive and S-E can survive then RIM can certainly survive.
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post #69 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

As I said before, I think RIM is gonna do just fine because of enterprise users. Sure iPhone now offers the same or even better features, but BB is still a status symbol for a business professional. Therefore, they can stop innovating and there would still be millions of sales in the medium term. ....

No.

The stock is failing badly and the companies financials have been bad for the whole last year. What usually happens in situations like that is the pressure from the shareholders and the BoD forces the company to re-align itself along more profitable lines in areas that are likely to experience actual growth. Once a company stops growing, the investors generally leave the next day (at least those that don't want to lose their money).

BBM is the only unique property they have that's likely to grow. What's likely to happen (assuming no one buys them out), is they fire the CEOs and re-align their strategy behind BBM by releasing the product for other mobile platforms. That way they can still keep selling their services to the enterprise but not necessarily on their own hardware.

It's just a long slow slide into obscurity at this point. The only thing that will stop it is if someone buys them outright and just kills them.
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post #70 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

...BB is still a status symbol for a business professional.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chabig View Post

I disagree. That used to be true, though I think the status of a BB faded long ago.

I have trouble imagining anyone who keeps up with business technology thinking BB is a status symbol. A workman like piece of equipment yes, but status symbol? Not any longer.
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post #71 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

The stock is failing badly and the companies financials have been bad for the whole last year.

Bad for the last year but still better than Moto, S-E, Nokia and LG.

Quote:
Once a company stops growing, the investors generally leave the next day (at least those that don't want to lose their money).

Nope, all that happens is the price drops until the P/E ratio drops to reflect the lower growth opportunities. A P/E ratio of say 10 would be reasonable for a firm with stagnant growth - RIM is at 6 - implying that investors are already pricing in considerable loss of future profits.

Quote:
BBM is the only unique property they have that's likely to grow.

Absolutely wrong - their USP is their enterprise mail solution, which keeps the mail stored within the enterprise and integrates tightly with Exchange, Lotus Notes etc - to provide a secure corporpate email system that has a mobile reach.
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post #72 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:47am
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Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

Mmm... toast and BlackBerry jam...

Mmmm! I make the best blackberry jam.
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post #73 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

As I said before, I think RIM is gonna do just fine because of enterprise users. Sure iPhone now offers the same or even better features, but BB is still a status symbol for a business professional. Therefore, they can stop innovating and there would still be millions of sales in the medium term. I think just like MS RIM can have products be very late to market, and people would still buy them out of habit and because they are "good for business customers".

Sure the stock might take a plunge, but the company won't shut down and will just operate with a lower market cap.

I don't think that's true anymore. So many people in business are abandoning the BB, mostly in favor of iPhones, and to a lessor extent, Android phones. Even business people are consumers. And with more companies allowing people to bring their own phones in, and their willingness to integrate them into their company network, the BB is being pushed out. And, in addition, when it's the "C" level executives that are doing the bringing and pushing, the CIO has no ability to deny them.

We're seeing the same thing happening to tablets. Most CIOs' have stated in a survey late last year, that they would be getting iPads, or have already done so. Only 9% said they were interested in the Playbook.

While it's sad, it really does look as though RIMs' time has passed. By the time QNX is on their phones, their sales and marketshare will have plummeted further. And then there's the problem of convincing developers to write for the platform.
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post #74 of 115
6/17/11 at 10:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff View Post

Because its a BlackBerry. They have a strong brand in the business world. Many of my classmates in business school bought blackberries over iPhones and Androids just because they were blackberries and business people use blackberries.

But that's a dying market for them. Their sales increases are being made in third world countries where phones aren't subsidized, and cheaper BBs' have been popular. But that leads to lower dollar numbers, both in sales and profits. In the US and Europe, their marketshare has plummeted, and their sales are slowly drying urge BB brand is beginning tom mean, not prestige, but obsolescence and backwardness.

Even their vaunted security is becoming doubtful, with what has happened in various dictatorships around the world.
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post #75 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

But that's a dying market for them.

I've not seen any evidence it's dying, it's just not growing all that fast.

Quote:
Even their vaunted security is becoming doubtful, with what has happened in various dictatorships around the world.

From back in Jan

RIM also said that corporate email services remained unavailable to authorities, due to the fact the service incorporates a strict encryption algorithm that the company is not able to access, let alone provide access to a third-party.

RIM is still the gold standard for secure corporate email to the handset.


Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

Mmmm! I make the best blackberry jam.

Apple+Blackberry ftw - at least for jam.
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post #76 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post

It's not a status symbol, but it is a security symbol - like a comfort blanket. An enterprise that uses BB keeps control over its own email, and this is a huge deal. A friend of mine is a banker at a top investment bank, he owns a US iPhone, a UK iPhone and has a corporate blackberry for email. I'm sure he'd love to be able to get rid of the BB, but until Apple can match RIM's email offering he won't be able to.

Then it's interesting that banks were some of the first businesses to move to the iPhone, and now, the iPad, and in large numbers.

I question RIMs' security. In theory, it's tops. But in actual practice, as long as RIM can get into the security themselves, as they can, it's not really any more secure that the iPhone is. As I mentioned last post, several third world nations have demanded that security key. While we don't know what actually happened, at least one of those countries stopped BB sales and turned off their network in the country for a while. Interestingly enough, the countries that were demanding the keys with the threats of killing BB sales there, and that included India, a big market for their cheaper models, suddenly stopped. The question was whether they got what they wanted. The other question is how many other governments have that key, including the USA and Canada.
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post #77 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post

The thing is though, if RIM collapses, where are the enterprise customers going to go? The only company that has a drop in product to replace that stuff is Apple.

Apple can do absolutely nothing here, and spend no money at all, and they will still end up with probably 60% or more of RIM's business if RIM goes under.

Yeah, it all depends on how low RIM's valuation goes. I don't think anyone would pick them up now at $14 billion. What do they have that's worth $14 billion? Their hardware and OS is last generation. Their talent has proved incapable of creating a smart phone able to compete with iPhone and Android. It's all about what a company would pay to secure their customers. But if the stock collapses, it might be worth picking up, just to secure that user base.
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post #78 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

Then it's interesting that banks were some of the first businesses to move to the iPhone, and now, the iPad, and in large numbers.

Who? I've not worked for any investment banks that use iPhones. iPads are being used but not for email, they're being used as sales devices to show presentations - at least from what I've seen so far.

Quote:
I question RIMs' security. In theory, it's tops. But in actual practice, as long as RIM can get into the security themselves, as they can, it's not really any more secure that the iPhone is.

They don't have the email keys, the keys never leave the enterprise - that's the entire point and that's why they told the Indians that they simply weren't able to provide access.
This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
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This is important! Someone is wrong on the internet
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post #79 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:12am
I dont think that RIM are dying, either. And some people will always want a keyboard phone.

In the UK their market share doubled recently. I think it is higher than iOS. If iOS every drops market share while gaining unit share - the arguments on here would be so much different.

The real issue for them is declining margins, or is it? I think Apple is going to see declining margins from now on, too, if it wants to compete as a platform.
I wanted dsadsa bit it was taken.
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I wanted dsadsa bit it was taken.
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post #80 of 115
6/17/11 at 11:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by z3r0 View Post

QNX is a nice clean and proven microkernel minus the baggage found in darwin. QNX also has some nice distributed OS features and security to boot (EAL4 vs Mac OS X EAL3).

Aqua is pretty abstracted so it wouldn't be that bad to layer on to QNX.

You are all mess up. Darwin is not a kernel, its the whole system, iOS and MacOS X kernel named XNU derive from Mach message passing microkernel. Apple Cocoa is build on top of the messaging capability of the Mach kernel, so it would be pretty hard to adapt iOS on another Kernel. All darwin baggage you mention is optional BSD system that is not install on iOS. QNX kernel is not more or less secure than any other Posix type of kernel. The whole system is a other story, embedded version of QNX can be very secure, but Playbook OS don't have any security certification yet and for sure will be less secure than a vanilla QNX.
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  • RIM called a 'one-trick pony,' company's 'nightmare' seen as benefit to Apple
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