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.
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 weapon?you know, in case you find yourself in a dark alley with a gaggle of nefarious types who wish you harm.*
I'm not exactly sure why, but somehow Wall Street will figure out that Android smartphones are eating into RIM's market share and not the iPhone
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.
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.
So RIM have a time machine too? Why are they running a year ahead?
Quote:
Originally Posted by IQatEdo
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Comments
"The BlackBerry was the number one smartphone in several countries in March and April including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia..."
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.
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.
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
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 weapon?you 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!
I'm not exactly sure why, but somehow Wall Street will figure out that Android smartphones are eating into RIM's market share and not the iPhone
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.
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.
So RIM have a time machine too? Why are they running a year ahead?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Aqua is pretty abstracted so it wouldn't be that bad to layer on to QNX.
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?
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!'.
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.
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.
<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.
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.
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.