There is no way to sugarcoat today’s announcement
from once great Blackberry maker, RIM. They are, after years of
putting their heads in the sand, finally taking drastic measures to
change course including getting rid of former Co-CEO and current board
member Jim Balsillie as well as their their CTO and COO (loooong
overdue). Revenues are way down as are unit sales and prospects.
But what is the way out of this mess? They say they are looking for ”strategic business-model alternatives”. They are also considering a sale. Where is there any value in the company?
Their current devices are taking a nosedive in value.
BlackBerry 10, even if it is amazing (and when is the last time amazing
came out of Waterloo?) still has an uphill battle against iOS, Android
and even Microsoft who is fighting to get out of that “other” category.
The low end is getting slammed by cheap Androids while Apple is sucking
up the corporate and high end market.
The first fruits of that QNX labor, the PlayBook, sold 500,000 units
last quarter…and that was at drastically below build costs pricing. RIM
says the first BlackBerry 10 devices will be available in late
2012…which is a year later than needed.
Even their once ubiquitous Blackberry Enterprise Servers that sit
between corporate Mail servers and carriers/mobile devices are now
obsolete.
Steve Jobs said in a conference call a few years ago that Apple
considered Blackberry to be “in the rear view mirror”. Perhaps
he realized that not even somebody with his own turn-around talents
could rescue RIM.
From http://9to5mac.com/2012/03/29/rim-rip-is-in-its-death-spiral/#more-156669
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