Beleaguered RIM to lay off 2,000 employees, 11% of workforce

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MuncyWeb View Post


    To-big-to-fail-alert! Bailout needed!! LOL



    Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    yeah, but that company regained their singular founder and industry visionary.



    Can they recover? Sure - anything, no mater how improbable, is possible.



    Is it probable? Not bloody likely - especially given their current level of cluelessness and denial



    It's pretty much all downhill from here. That said, if they can surpass Android or Apple within a few year's time it will be a highly, highly notable comeback story.
  • Reply 62 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    I'm a unique kinda guy...



    We're all unique here. I won a essay competition when I was in elementary school and won a year's worth of free burgers from A&W (The root beer restaurant chain thingy).
  • Reply 63 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    We're all unique here. I won a essay competition when I was in elementary school and won a year's worth of free burgers from A&W (The root beer restaurant chain thingy).



    Not a year's free root beer?
  • Reply 64 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.



    That kind of thing only happens with big industrials like car-makers - even Europeans have given up trying to save computer makers and cell-phone companies.
  • Reply 65 of 78
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    Not as outrageous as it sounds. I bet you the Canadian government is monitoring this closely.



    The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.
  • Reply 66 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.



    RIM has $3B in cash and no debt, they have no need for a government cash infusion to rescue them. By the time they have burned through that cash they will be well beyond any such rescue.



    MS invested 150million in Apple in late 1997, it was a) not a loan and b) not money that Apple needed to survive - it was more symbolic than anything. At the time that the investment occurred Apple had around a billion in free cash and had reduced operating losses to 40mil per quarter. MS' investment made it clear to the market that the two firms were no longer at war, but the investment in MS Office was far more significant than the 150million.
  • Reply 67 of 78
    realisticrealistic Posts: 1,154member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    There isn't really a good alternative word though. You could say 'beset' but that normally comes with a qualification, 'beset by falling sales'. They could say 'beseiged' but it sounds too military, 'troubled' sounds too teenager. How else would you describe a firm that's in a very tough but still conceivably survivable situation?



    Bewildered?
  • Reply 68 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Realistic View Post


    Bewildered?



    Maybe Addled.
  • Reply 69 of 78
    eswinsoneswinson Posts: 99member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    This is shocking and totally unexpected. I am so sad.



    One of the RIM CEO's said that the playbook was "way ahead" of the iPad and that it was setting the bar higher.



    And one of the CEO's slammed Apple for it's "distortion field".



    "For those of us who live outside of Apple's distortion field, we know that 7" tablets will actually be a big portion of the market," Balsillie wrote. He argued that RIM's support for Adobe Flash and an approach to developers that is more open than Apple's will give RIM an edge.





    These CEO's with their big, ignorant mouths should be looking for new jobs as janitors somewhere, as that profession seems to be what they are best qualified for, since there is a lot of garbage coming out of their mouths.







    Have you noticed lately that Adobe is not even pushing flash like they used to? They even announced today they are shutting down their app stores for flex and air apps.
  • Reply 70 of 78
    eswinsoneswinson Posts: 99member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    There is vestigial value, but the problem is that there aren't a lot of companies that could use it. The other players in mobile are mostly screwed themselves. RIM is also a lot more expensive than Palm was, if it was a couple of BN then you might see a player like Dell try to use it to get scale in the handset business. At 14BN it's hard to imagine.



    but at the rate it is going a few more quarters and there may be a fire sale.



    There is a lot of core technology (and existing customer deployments of BBES) that would dovetail with Microsoft's business interests. The phone hardware and even OS itself is pretty useless but if Windows Phone can clean up its act and get back to business before companies totally exile their blackberry investments it may allow an upgrade path for them that keeps IT guys happy and puts a new touchscreen phone in the hands of employees that lets them do all the things they want like work on documents, post on Facebook and install custom apps and games on a keyboard-less (or keyboarded if they so choose) device.
  • Reply 71 of 78
    eswinsoneswinson Posts: 99member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    I'm a unique kinda guy.







    Problem with 'disoriented' is that it implies that if they could just get their bearings they'd be all sorted. I think RIM knows where they are, unfortunately where they are is really really bad.



    'Pining for the Fjords' perhaps?





    They are in open water without a boat or land in sight. The sharks are circling. There is only one thing they can do that will get them out alive and even that has a high risk of failure. They need to pick a direction and put all effort into it. To paraphrase Jobs - The smartphone war has been won. They should pick the next big thing and get busy working on that.
  • Reply 72 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eswinson View Post


    They are in open water without a boat or land in sight. The sharks are circling. There is only one thing they can do that will get them out alive and even that has a high risk of failure. They need to pick a direction and put all effort into it. To paraphrase Jobs - The smartphone war has been won. They should pick the next big thing and get busy working on that.



    That's a bit long for a headline though (maybe you missed the previous posts but the post you were replying to was part of a sub-discussion about the use of the word 'beleaguered'
  • Reply 73 of 78
    cloudgazercloudgazer Posts: 2,161member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eswinson View Post


    but at the rate it is going a few more quarters and there may be a fire sale.



    There is a lot of core technology (and existing customer deployments of BBES) that would dovetail with Microsoft's business interests. The phone hardware and even OS itself is pretty useless but if Windows Phone can clean up its act and get back to business before companies totally exile their blackberry investments it may allow an upgrade path for them that keeps IT guys happy and puts a new touchscreen phone in the hands of employees that lets them do all the things they want like work on documents, post on Facebook and install custom apps and games on a keyboard-less (or keyboarded if they so choose) device.



    BBES isn't worth more than a few hundred million, if MS really wanted a product that did that they could buy Good for much less than RIM and besides MS already has a corporate mail system - exchange. MS has picked Nokia for its partner this time round, so it won't buy RIM till that runs its course.



    It's pretty much the same with any partner you can think of. They're either too poor to afford RIM, too wrapped up in their own problems to handle RIM or just flat out don't need RIM.
  • Reply 74 of 78
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    So all that yammering a few months about about how well the company was doing was complete BS instead of mostly BS.



    The only people who believed it was RIM.
  • Reply 75 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    So all that yammering a few months about about how well the company was doing was complete BS instead of mostly BS.



    Most (or all) of the stuff coming from the co-CEOs was gibberish anyway. Maybe to protect themselves from any legal fallout when the sh1t hit the fan like it's doing now.



    What they were spouting was so unintelligible there's no way anyone could claim they made misleading statements... because no one could figure out what in the world they were saying anyways.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    UTTAIA - Up To Their Ass In Alligators



    Or "Up the creek with a paddle up their ass"



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    That kind of thing only happens with big industrials like car-makers - even Europeans have given up trying to save computer makers and cell-phone companies.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    The Canadian government is watching this situation very closely. This is a totally different scenario than Nortel which had tons of debt and absolutely no hope of recovery. RIM's situation is not entirely hopeless but it would take a Jobsian level of intervention to keep RIM's engine churning. If RIM came up with a solid plan within the next few months I can very much see the gov loaning them the money necessary for an about shift... as MS did for Apple/Jobs in the late 90s.



    The Canadian government came under fire a few times for what people deemed to be more than one "bailout" of Nortel. I agree with Island Hermit, the Canadian government may very well have to intervene but if I were a Canadian taxpayer I may not want them to. The chances of a decent turnaround of RIM is getting slimmer by the day.
  • Reply 76 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eswinson View Post


    Have you noticed lately that Adobe is not even pushing flash like they used to? They even announced today they are shutting down their app stores for flex and air apps.



    I don't think Adobe knows what the heck they are doing with Flash. Shutting down Flex and Air app stores sounds like a bad omen.
  • Reply 77 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    Not a year's free root beer?



    Can't remember if it was a free burger and root beer per day or just a free burger per day. Ah, back in the days when childhood obesity wasn't an epidemic...
  • Reply 78 of 78
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Robin Huber View Post


    On a more serious note, I wonder which is the better analogy, one-trick pony or dinosaur?



    RIM illustrates the problem of a company that creates a very successful product for a niche market (the Blackberry for Corporate use) and then sits on it. The Blackberry does what it does very well, and did it first. RIMs leaders decided that was enough, just keep on improving the basic product. The one-trick pony.



    After all, regular people liked the email functionality, so it seemed they were expanding their market. When the environment changed, the Blackberry like the dinosaur (also a very successful "product") didn't adapt and was overtaken by a company that was lighter on its feet and had a long record of innovating and changing.



    How about a one-trick dinosaur?
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