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.
I've not seen any evidence it's dying, it's just not growing all that fast.
Marketshare is down significantly in Europe and the USA. Indeed, it's down in Canada as well. Sales growth this quarter YOY in dollars was 16%. that may seem great, but smartphone growth in the same time period was 73%. Apple grew smartphones sales their last quarter by 113%. Even Nokia, before Elop came aboard and killed their sales with that insane ranting, was 36% YOY. So RIM is in serious trouble.
They lowered their projections for this quarter twice, and still didn't meet the lowest numbers the projected. They had said, after lowering the numbers already, that they would ship (not sell, as Apple states) between 13.5 and 14.5 million phones last quarter, but they only shipped 13.2 million. That's no growth at all, and profits were down some $80 million YOY. They also claimed 500,000 Playbooks shipped, but refused to provide sell through numbers when asked about that, and phones. What does that tell you?
They are in big trouble. There's no doubt of that. The question is can they now execute perfectly? If not they could be doomed.
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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.
Except that it isn't true, as far as we know. And what would you expect them to say? If they did come to agreemen with those governments, do you think either party would want everyone to know it? Why would several countries who badly want that key suddenly give up on it, all at the same time? It's very suspicious. If Apple was in that position, you wouldn't believe them, so why RIM?
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.
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.
Chase, B of A, Citicorp. Those are the ones I remember announcing it. I'm sure others have too.
Please, do you really think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs or if a warrant was issued? This goes through their own servers. Companies can be pressured.
As for iPads, you can look up all the articles that say you can't go to a board meeting without seeing iPads. They're used to look up company info, and do other work. There is a lot of business software available for the iPad from most all developers.
Marketshare is down significantly in Europe and the USA.
Again you're talking about share of the smartphone segment, not total handsets. This is primarily because of conversion of feature-phones. I've seen no evidence whatsover that RIM are losing substantial total handset share - stagnant sales are not the same thing. Their profits are dropping, but that's true for every handset maker except Apple.
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Except that it isn't true, as far as we know. And what would you expect them to say? If they did come to agreemen with those governments, do you think either party would want everyone to know it? Why would several countries who badly want that key suddenly give up on it, all at the same time? It's very suspicious. If Apple was in that position, you wouldn't believe them, so why RIM?
If Apple didn't have the keys of course I would believe them when they said that they didn't supply the keys. If India wants the keys to say HSBCs email system then they'll have to get them from HSBC. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that RIM are in possession of the keys that they've flat out denied ever possessing?
Please, do you really think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs or if a warrant was issued? This goes through their own servers. Companies can be pressured.
Yes I think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs because it would be a gratuitous risk for them. You have no evidence for one beyond a vague suspicion, and if their clients ever discovered there was such a backdoor they would abandon them instantly. So why place a loaded gun to their own heads by supplying one when they were under no legal obligation to do so? It's not worth it for them to gain India if they lose everybody else.
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Originally Posted by melgross
Chase, B of A, Citicorp. Those are the ones I remember announcing it. I'm sure others have too.
I believe you are mistaking banks that have announced they are supporting the iPhone for internet banking - I'm talking about banks that are using them internally. Totally different.
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.
Some people. Even RIM understands that with their I'll fated Storm and Bold that more people want keyless phones. They just weren't able to make the ones that worked well, or that people wanted.
The claim by RIMis from this controversial study done in the UK, that the following article talks about.
Bad for the last year but still better than Moto, S-E, Nokia and LG.
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.
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.
All I can say is keep staring at those clouds cloudgazer because you are definitely dreaming.
Once a company stops growing they are toast. Only a tiny fraction ever recover from that situation. RIM user base has been shrinking essentially since the iPhone came out.
RIM has been feeding it's new devices to it's old customers at reduced price points. The new customers aren't coming in, the customer base itself is shrinking, and the devices are essentially identical to the ones they were previously selling with less features at higher prices. The existing Blackberry customers are happy that they can get a much better Blackberry for less cost than last year's model, but the company is bleeding money just keeping those existing customers happy. If they can't attract new users (and they haven't for the last year or two), then they clearly have no future.
RIM's smartphone market looks like Apple's iPod market, or perhaps the car market in the late 50's and early 60's. They are in the business of putting new shiny fins and chrome trims on the same old device year after year.
The Playbook (their only new product), is a giant, expensive boondoggle that again, only appeals to the customer base that's already locked in and even then is priced far below what it should be to make back even a faction of what they spent developing it. It's also not selling very well, even to that tiny, niche group.
They have no new compelling products at all and aren't attracting any new customers. The two new products they tried (the Storm and the Playbook), were disasters. If that doesn't spell certain doom I don't know what does.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
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If that doesn't spell certain doom I don't know what does.
In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
Yeah, blah-blah-blah, whatever. I can see you are not really into debating.
Why quote my remarks at all if the bit afterwards isn't going to address what I said?
If Apple didn't have the keys of course I would believe them when they said that they didn't supply the keys. If India wants the keys to say HSBCs email system then they'll have to get them from HSBC. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that RIM are in possession of the keys that they've flat out denied ever possessing?
Like melgross said it is hard to believe that those governments suddenly gave up their demand for access. Especially since the agreements came after they were going to ban BB from their countries.
By the way.. expect Apple to be hit with the same problem in few months with iMessage.
Yeah, blah-blah-blah, whatever. I can see you are not really into debating.
Erm I did. You said that any firm that wasn't growing was toast, I pointed out that you were absolutely wrong in that statement and gave specific counter-examples. You made a point, I countered the point, very successfully apparently as you're now taking your ball home and refusing to play.
I particularly like it though that you quoted my entire letter and didn't address my points which is beautifully ironic as you then said
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Why quote my remarks at all if the bit afterwards isn't going to address what I said?
You can discuss how RIM isn't doing very well as much as you like, nobody is going to argue with those points because nobody disagrees with them. RIM isn't doing very well. RIM however isn't toast, and isn't doomed, well not any more than the other handset makers are, and your inability to argue otherwise pretty much demonstrates my point.
...Well, donning the pince-nez glasses, "Big Joe" looked round -- and saw that he may have missed somebody(s)...
Who could/would buy RIMM?
1) How about Oracle -- especially if Oracle is successful in its $ billions law suit against Google
2) How about Google -- same reason
3) Or how about someone else Buys QNX OS, licenses it back to RIMM for Smart Phones, while:
-- aaa) killing Flash (heh, heh, heh, personal dream)
-- a) providing QNX OS based tablets, themself
-- b) licensing QNX OS for tablets to other 3rd-parties
-- c) licensing QNX OS for Smart Phones to other 3rd-parties
A lot depends on the outcome of the Oracle lawsuit against Google. It could result in a viable market for a for-fee licensing of phone and tablet OSes -- such as:
-- MS WP7 Fee
-- Android Fee
-- QNX Fee
It could get interesting -- I can visualize companies like IBM or Cisco spending a billion or 2 to get into this "Mobile OS" business if Android is no-longer free.
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 am not sure what planet you are on. Blackberries are hardly a status symbol (they actually cost less than an iPhone and some Android devices). I am around many other business people and I can say that on average 45% of them use Blackberries, 45% use iPhones and the rest is a mix of Android and Windows Mobile.
The problem with Blackberry is that you have to deal with the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) which has a license fee, an annual support fee, not to mention the license and hardware costs for maintaining a BES for your company. Blackberries are also prone to outages when RIM's network goes down.
We can talk about how much better iPhones are for Salesforce and editing documents but I have made my point.
The problem with Blackberry is that you have to deal with the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) which has a license fee, an annual support fee, not to mention the license and hardware costs for maintaining a BES for your company. Blackberries are also prone to outages when RIM's network goes down.
We can talk about how much better iPhones are for Salesforce and editing documents but I have made my point.
I'm sure you're right about salesforce, and as a sales aid for presentations the iPad is the new must have item - but I disagree with you regarding BES. For a big enterprise it's not a disadvantage that you need your own server, it's a positive boon that you have control over your corporate email, because the thought that your internal email might be accessible to people outside is unthinkable.
I disagree. That used to be true, though I think the status of a BB faded long ago.
I agree the BB business mystique has faded. My daughter and her boyfriend were both big BB fans because of their respective companies support. Two weeks ago they both bought iPhone4s and are now telling me that many others in their companies are switching from BB to iPhone4s also.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
You can't necessarily talk about an entire industry the way you can about a particular company in that industry. The smartphone industry is growing at about 73% a quarter YOY. To maintain your place in the industry, you also have to maintain a 73% growth rare. RIMs' has been slowing down, it's just 16% now. Apples' was 113%, androids was even more. Nokias' was negative.
So who is doing well, and who isn't?
Their growth rate was 45% a couple of quarters ago. But they haven't been meeting their own projections for almost a year. When your growth rate slows down drastically in a short time, you should know that something serious is happening. Their profit was down $80 million from last years' quarter as well. That's pretty bad, because the margins have been dropping. A couple of years ago they were 60% gross, now they're 41%.
They dropped their projections for phones TWICE this quarter, the last time was just a few weeks ago, and they came out below even that low number. They just dropped EPS for 2012 from $7.50 to about $5.50. That scared investors, and was one of the reasons for the big drop. That was also just a few weeks ago when the strongly supported the $7.50 number. How can a company be so clueless, that it can't get the numbers right just a few weeks before an analyst call?
Now, they've said that their new phones will be delayed again, and that QNx models won't be available until sometime in the first calendar quarter of 2012. What if that slips as well?
They promised e-mail for the Playbook, and that date has passed. Now, they say it will be there by the end of the summer! Wow!
Last year, a survey was taken of thousands of cell phone users. 89% of iPhone users said their next phone would be an iPhone. 73% of Android users said their next phone would be an Android phone. And guess what? 44% of BB users said their next phone would be a BB.
And this is just a few of their problems.
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In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
well, that cute, but it doesn't address the current problems RIM has. Forget about Moto and S-E, we're talking about RIM. And a number of people think that RIM is worse off than Nokia, despite all of its problems.
Like melgross said it is hard to believe that those governments suddenly gave up their demand for access. Especially since the agreements came after they were going to ban BB from their countries.
By the way.. expect Apple to be hit with the same problem in few months with iMessage.
I forgot about that interveiw. He just doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to lie, but he can't tell the truth either, so he avoids it.
I'm sure you're right about salesforce, and as a sales aid for presentations the iPad is the new must have item - but I disagree with you regarding BES. For a big enterprise it's not a disadvantage that you need your own server, it's a positive boon that you have control over your corporate email, because the thought that your internal email might be accessible to people outside is unthinkable.
But increasingly, more big businesses are saying that the iPhone is secure enough. And he's right about RIMs' network going down. It happened at least two times last year.
You can't necessarily talk about an entire industry the way you can about a particular company in that industry.
Fine lets talk about a specific company within the IT industry - Microsoft. MS has been stagnant for years, with volatile profits that depend mostly on whether there is a new version of windows to push onto reluctant consumers. The IT industry as a whole has been vibrant in that time and their main competitor Apple has clearly grown gangbusters. But is MS toast? Not yet, no matter how much it would please me Neither is AMD toast in spite of their problems competing with Intel, badly damaged yes but still fighting and with an interesting offering in their new heterogeneous computing spiel.
Heck for years Apple was stagnant within the computer industry. Slowly losing marketshare to PC, and yet it wasn't toast because it had some core loyal markets that stayed with it through the wilderness years. If RIM has such a core loyal market, and I contend that they do, then they are in far better shape than many of their rivals.
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So who is doing well, and who isn't?
Their growth rate was 45% a couple of quarters ago. But they haven't been meeting their own projections for almost a year. When your growth rate slows down drastically in a short time, you should know that something serious is happening. Their profit was down $80 million from last years' quarter as well. That's pretty bad, because the margins have been dropping. A couple of years ago they were 60% gross, now they're 41%.
I'm certainly not saying that RIM are doing well, I'm not even saying that RIM are doing other than badly - I'm only saying that they're still not doing as badly as a bunch of other firms who aren't routinely spoken of as total basket cases.
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Last year, a survey was taken of thousands of cell phone users. 89% of iPhone users said their next phone would be an iPhone. 73% of Android users said their next phone would be an Android phone. And guess what? 44% of BB users said their next phone would be a BB.
Do you have a link for that survey? The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to know about the methodology used. Are they only looking at people who are buying their own phone for their own use and excluding enterprise users? f you surveyed my banker friend with 2 iPhones and a BB he'd say his next purchase is another iPhone, but there's no way his BB is going anywhere anytime soon.
Let me be clear - I thnk that RIM is screwed in the consumer market, where it has been doing pretty well thanks to early adopter smartphone users and kids who like BBM. Neither of those categories will show any loyalty and the phones will lose out to equivalently priced Android phones in those markets.
However that's not RIMs core market, and they can survive for a good long while without it - they may even be more interesting to a buyer without it as they'll be a purer enterprise play.
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Forget about Moto and S-E, we're talking about RIM. And a number of people think that RIM is worse off than Nokia, despite all of its problems.
We are but we can't talk about them in isolation. A big part of the problem for RIM and indeed for Android makers are the zombies Moto & S-E. They're in a slow death spiral, but as they slowly bleed share they price their phones aggressively and ruin margins for other players. There is nothing to stop RIM doing what everybody else has done, making a cheap knockoff iPhone 3GS, sticking a version of Android on it - though RIMs would obviously be a heavily locked down version - running their prop mail system on it and calling it a blackdroid. Frankly that's where I see RIM in 3 years time, if they aren't bought by a big player - as an niche enterprise Android maker.
Nokia is a different story to the other incredible shrinking handset makers because they have so much IP that they will do well as a business even with their handset sales cratering. They also have global manufacturing capability which is both a blessing in that it gives them great access in markets like south america, and a curse because it makes shrinking so expensive for them. That's why I can't decide whether Nokia is in more trouble than RIM or less. They can certainly continue to flail for years without completely expiring.
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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.
I've not seen any evidence it's dying, it's just not growing all that fast.
Marketshare is down significantly in Europe and the USA. Indeed, it's down in Canada as well. Sales growth this quarter YOY in dollars was 16%. that may seem great, but smartphone growth in the same time period was 73%. Apple grew smartphones sales their last quarter by 113%. Even Nokia, before Elop came aboard and killed their sales with that insane ranting, was 36% YOY. So RIM is in serious trouble.
They lowered their projections for this quarter twice, and still didn't meet the lowest numbers the projected. They had said, after lowering the numbers already, that they would ship (not sell, as Apple states) between 13.5 and 14.5 million phones last quarter, but they only shipped 13.2 million. That's no growth at all, and profits were down some $80 million YOY. They also claimed 500,000 Playbooks shipped, but refused to provide sell through numbers when asked about that, and phones. What does that tell you?
They are in big trouble. There's no doubt of that. The question is can they now execute perfectly? If not they could be doomed.
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.
Except that it isn't true, as far as we know. And what would you expect them to say? If they did come to agreemen with those governments, do you think either party would want everyone to know it? Why would several countries who badly want that key suddenly give up on it, all at the same time? It's very suspicious. If Apple was in that position, you wouldn't believe them, so why RIM?
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.
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.
Chase, B of A, Citicorp. Those are the ones I remember announcing it. I'm sure others have too.
Please, do you really think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs or if a warrant was issued? This goes through their own servers. Companies can be pressured.
As for iPads, you can look up all the articles that say you can't go to a board meeting without seeing iPads. They're used to look up company info, and do other work. There is a lot of business software available for the iPad from most all developers.
Marketshare is down significantly in Europe and the USA.
Again you're talking about share of the smartphone segment, not total handsets. This is primarily because of conversion of feature-phones. I've seen no evidence whatsover that RIM are losing substantial total handset share - stagnant sales are not the same thing. Their profits are dropping, but that's true for every handset maker except Apple.
Except that it isn't true, as far as we know. And what would you expect them to say? If they did come to agreemen with those governments, do you think either party would want everyone to know it? Why would several countries who badly want that key suddenly give up on it, all at the same time? It's very suspicious. If Apple was in that position, you wouldn't believe them, so why RIM?
If Apple didn't have the keys of course I would believe them when they said that they didn't supply the keys. If India wants the keys to say HSBCs email system then they'll have to get them from HSBC. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that RIM are in possession of the keys that they've flat out denied ever possessing?
Please, do you really think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs or if a warrant was issued? This goes through their own servers. Companies can be pressured.
Yes I think they wouldn't have a backdoor for their own needs because it would be a gratuitous risk for them. You have no evidence for one beyond a vague suspicion, and if their clients ever discovered there was such a backdoor they would abandon them instantly. So why place a loaded gun to their own heads by supplying one when they were under no legal obligation to do so? It's not worth it for them to gain India if they lose everybody else.
Chase, B of A, Citicorp. Those are the ones I remember announcing it. I'm sure others have too.
I believe you are mistaking banks that have announced they are supporting the iPhone for internet banking - I'm talking about banks that are using them internally. Totally different.
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.
Some people. Even RIM understands that with their I'll fated Storm and Bold that more people want keyless phones. They just weren't able to make the ones that worked well, or that people wanted.
The claim by RIMis from this controversial study done in the UK, that the following article talks about.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...uk-blackberrys
Bad for the last year but still better than Moto, S-E, Nokia and LG.
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.
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.
All I can say is keep staring at those clouds cloudgazer because you are definitely dreaming.
Once a company stops growing they are toast. Only a tiny fraction ever recover from that situation. RIM user base has been shrinking essentially since the iPhone came out.
RIM has been feeding it's new devices to it's old customers at reduced price points. The new customers aren't coming in, the customer base itself is shrinking, and the devices are essentially identical to the ones they were previously selling with less features at higher prices. The existing Blackberry customers are happy that they can get a much better Blackberry for less cost than last year's model, but the company is bleeding money just keeping those existing customers happy. If they can't attract new users (and they haven't for the last year or two), then they clearly have no future.
RIM's smartphone market looks like Apple's iPod market, or perhaps the car market in the late 50's and early 60's. They are in the business of putting new shiny fins and chrome trims on the same old device year after year.
The Playbook (their only new product), is a giant, expensive boondoggle that again, only appeals to the customer base that's already locked in and even then is priced far below what it should be to make back even a faction of what they spent developing it. It's also not selling very well, even to that tiny, niche group.
They have no new compelling products at all and aren't attracting any new customers. The two new products they tried (the Storm and the Playbook), were disasters. If that doesn't spell certain doom I don't know what does.
Once a company stops growing they are toast.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
If that doesn't spell certain doom I don't know what does.
In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
Yeah, blah-blah-blah, whatever. I can see you are not really into debating.
Why quote my remarks at all if the bit afterwards isn't going to address what I said?
Yeah, blah-blah-blah, whatever. I can see you are not really into debating.
Excellent point!
If Apple didn't have the keys of course I would believe them when they said that they didn't supply the keys. If India wants the keys to say HSBCs email system then they'll have to get them from HSBC. Do you have any evidence whatsoever that RIM are in possession of the keys that they've flat out denied ever possessing?
RIM used to say that they don't. Right now they avoid answering the question.
Like melgross said it is hard to believe that those governments suddenly gave up their demand for access. Especially since the agreements came after they were going to ban BB from their countries.
By the way.. expect Apple to be hit with the same problem in few months with iMessage.
Yeah, blah-blah-blah, whatever. I can see you are not really into debating.
Erm I did. You said that any firm that wasn't growing was toast, I pointed out that you were absolutely wrong in that statement and gave specific counter-examples. You made a point, I countered the point, very successfully apparently as you're now taking your ball home and refusing to play.
I particularly like it though that you quoted my entire letter and didn't address my points which is beautifully ironic as you then said
Why quote my remarks at all if the bit afterwards isn't going to address what I said?
You can discuss how RIM isn't doing very well as much as you like, nobody is going to argue with those points because nobody disagrees with them. RIM isn't doing very well. RIM however isn't toast, and isn't doomed, well not any more than the other handset makers are, and your inability to argue otherwise pretty much demonstrates my point.
Who could/would buy RIMM?
1) How about Oracle -- especially if Oracle is successful in its $ billions law suit against Google
2) How about Google -- same reason
3) Or how about someone else Buys QNX OS, licenses it back to RIMM for Smart Phones, while:
-- aaa) killing Flash (heh, heh, heh, personal dream)
-- a) providing QNX OS based tablets, themself
-- b) licensing QNX OS for tablets to other 3rd-parties
-- c) licensing QNX OS for Smart Phones to other 3rd-parties
A lot depends on the outcome of the Oracle lawsuit against Google. It could result in a viable market for a for-fee licensing of phone and tablet OSes -- such as:
-- MS WP7 Fee
-- Android Fee
-- QNX Fee
It could get interesting -- I can visualize companies like IBM or Cisco spending a billion or 2 to get into this "Mobile OS" business if Android is no-longer free.
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 am not sure what planet you are on. Blackberries are hardly a status symbol (they actually cost less than an iPhone and some Android devices). I am around many other business people and I can say that on average 45% of them use Blackberries, 45% use iPhones and the rest is a mix of Android and Windows Mobile.
The problem with Blackberry is that you have to deal with the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) which has a license fee, an annual support fee, not to mention the license and hardware costs for maintaining a BES for your company. Blackberries are also prone to outages when RIM's network goes down.
We can talk about how much better iPhones are for Salesforce and editing documents but I have made my point.
The problem with Blackberry is that you have to deal with the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) which has a license fee, an annual support fee, not to mention the license and hardware costs for maintaining a BES for your company. Blackberries are also prone to outages when RIM's network goes down.
We can talk about how much better iPhones are for Salesforce and editing documents but I have made my point.
I'm sure you're right about salesforce, and as a sales aid for presentations the iPad is the new must have item - but I disagree with you regarding BES. For a big enterprise it's not a disadvantage that you need your own server, it's a positive boon that you have control over your corporate email, because the thought that your internal email might be accessible to people outside is unthinkable.
I disagree. That used to be true, though I think the status of a BB faded long ago.
I agree the BB business mystique has faded. My daughter and her boyfriend were both big BB fans because of their respective companies support. Two weeks ago they both bought iPhone4s and are now telling me that many others in their companies are switching from BB to iPhone4s also.
The PC industry stopped growing years ago, it's been flat for quarter after quarter, so is the entire PC industry toast? Of course it isn't. What about the cigarette industry? Growing? Of course not, but it still makes great money and will do for decades to come, so it's hardly toast (though Luckies are of course toasted). There are lots of firms and indeed entire industries that are either growing very slowly or declining slowly and this doesn't mean that every investor immediately sells and the business closes. It just means that investors adjust their expectations and the market cap of the firm drops accordingly. I strongly suggest you go and learn a bit of finance and economics before making sweepingly wrong statements in future.
You can't necessarily talk about an entire industry the way you can about a particular company in that industry. The smartphone industry is growing at about 73% a quarter YOY. To maintain your place in the industry, you also have to maintain a 73% growth rare. RIMs' has been slowing down, it's just 16% now. Apples' was 113%, androids was even more. Nokias' was negative.
So who is doing well, and who isn't?
Their growth rate was 45% a couple of quarters ago. But they haven't been meeting their own projections for almost a year. When your growth rate slows down drastically in a short time, you should know that something serious is happening. Their profit was down $80 million from last years' quarter as well. That's pretty bad, because the margins have been dropping. A couple of years ago they were 60% gross, now they're 41%.
They dropped their projections for phones TWICE this quarter, the last time was just a few weeks ago, and they came out below even that low number. They just dropped EPS for 2012 from $7.50 to about $5.50. That scared investors, and was one of the reasons for the big drop. That was also just a few weeks ago when the strongly supported the $7.50 number. How can a company be so clueless, that it can't get the numbers right just a few weeks before an analyst call?
Now, they've said that their new phones will be delayed again, and that QNx models won't be available until sometime in the first calendar quarter of 2012. What if that slips as well?
They promised e-mail for the Playbook, and that date has passed. Now, they say it will be there by the end of the summer! Wow!
Last year, a survey was taken of thousands of cell phone users. 89% of iPhone users said their next phone would be an iPhone. 73% of Android users said their next phone would be an Android phone. And guess what? 44% of BB users said their next phone would be a BB.
And this is just a few of their problems.
In the long run we're all certainly doomed. Most firms around today won't be around in a century, or even 50 years. RIM isn't in the worst shape of smartphone makers, Moto is worse off, S-E is worse off, LG is worse off, perhaps even Nokia is worse off. RIM still have a brand with value in the enterprise market and that market will stay loyal to something like an email system for decades - or else how do you explain that firms still use Lotus Notes?
Repeating 'they're toast! they're toast' doesn't convince me of anything, though it is making me hungry.
well, that cute, but it doesn't address the current problems RIM has. Forget about Moto and S-E, we're talking about RIM. And a number of people think that RIM is worse off than Nokia, despite all of its problems.
http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...evolution.aspx
RIM used to say that they don't. Right now they avoid answering the question.
Like melgross said it is hard to believe that those governments suddenly gave up their demand for access. Especially since the agreements came after they were going to ban BB from their countries.
By the way.. expect Apple to be hit with the same problem in few months with iMessage.
I forgot about that interveiw. He just doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to lie, but he can't tell the truth either, so he avoids it.
I'm sure you're right about salesforce, and as a sales aid for presentations the iPad is the new must have item - but I disagree with you regarding BES. For a big enterprise it's not a disadvantage that you need your own server, it's a positive boon that you have control over your corporate email, because the thought that your internal email might be accessible to people outside is unthinkable.
But increasingly, more big businesses are saying that the iPhone is secure enough. And he's right about RIMs' network going down. It happened at least two times last year.
You can't necessarily talk about an entire industry the way you can about a particular company in that industry.
Fine lets talk about a specific company within the IT industry - Microsoft. MS has been stagnant for years, with volatile profits that depend mostly on whether there is a new version of windows to push onto reluctant consumers. The IT industry as a whole has been vibrant in that time and their main competitor Apple has clearly grown gangbusters. But is MS toast? Not yet, no matter how much it would please me
Heck for years Apple was stagnant within the computer industry. Slowly losing marketshare to PC, and yet it wasn't toast because it had some core loyal markets that stayed with it through the wilderness years. If RIM has such a core loyal market, and I contend that they do, then they are in far better shape than many of their rivals.
So who is doing well, and who isn't?
Their growth rate was 45% a couple of quarters ago. But they haven't been meeting their own projections for almost a year. When your growth rate slows down drastically in a short time, you should know that something serious is happening. Their profit was down $80 million from last years' quarter as well. That's pretty bad, because the margins have been dropping. A couple of years ago they were 60% gross, now they're 41%.
I'm certainly not saying that RIM are doing well, I'm not even saying that RIM are doing other than badly - I'm only saying that they're still not doing as badly as a bunch of other firms who aren't routinely spoken of as total basket cases.
Last year, a survey was taken of thousands of cell phone users. 89% of iPhone users said their next phone would be an iPhone. 73% of Android users said their next phone would be an Android phone. And guess what? 44% of BB users said their next phone would be a BB.
Do you have a link for that survey? The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to know about the methodology used. Are they only looking at people who are buying their own phone for their own use and excluding enterprise users? f you surveyed my banker friend with 2 iPhones and a BB he'd say his next purchase is another iPhone, but there's no way his BB is going anywhere anytime soon.
Let me be clear - I thnk that RIM is screwed in the consumer market, where it has been doing pretty well thanks to early adopter smartphone users and kids who like BBM. Neither of those categories will show any loyalty and the phones will lose out to equivalently priced Android phones in those markets.
However that's not RIMs core market, and they can survive for a good long while without it - they may even be more interesting to a buyer without it as they'll be a purer enterprise play.
Forget about Moto and S-E, we're talking about RIM. And a number of people think that RIM is worse off than Nokia, despite all of its problems.
We are but we can't talk about them in isolation. A big part of the problem for RIM and indeed for Android makers are the zombies Moto & S-E. They're in a slow death spiral, but as they slowly bleed share they price their phones aggressively and ruin margins for other players. There is nothing to stop RIM doing what everybody else has done, making a cheap knockoff iPhone 3GS, sticking a version of Android on it - though RIMs would obviously be a heavily locked down version - running their prop mail system on it and calling it a blackdroid. Frankly that's where I see RIM in 3 years time, if they aren't bought by a big player - as an niche enterprise Android maker.
Nokia is a different story to the other incredible shrinking handset makers because they have so much IP that they will do well as a business even with their handset sales cratering. They also have global manufacturing capability which is both a blessing in that it gives them great access in markets like south america, and a curse because it makes shrinking so expensive for them. That's why I can't decide whether Nokia is in more trouble than RIM or less. They can certainly continue to flail for years without completely expiring.