Posted on February 11, 2009, at 11:03 AM .
Certicom Corp., a security software development company, said they the board will fully approve the RIM $131-million all-cash bid. This news comes after VeriSign gave notice it would not raise its $92-million offer.
Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about how RIM’s profits are down even though subscriptions are up. I’m not positive, but I think RIM licenses its security software from Certicom, and this takeover could help improve profit margins, even if just slightly. In any case, it’s nice to see cash flowing in an economy where cash is being sucked into a black hole somewhere on Wall Street.
Posted on February 11, 2009, at 9:47 AM .
RIM is expecting the number of BlackBerry subscribers to be up 20 percent this quarter from their previous estimate of 2.9 million. That would make total subscribers at (fidgeting with calculator) 3.48 million. Although subscriptions are going up, the company still expects profits to be at the low end of its forecast.
“RIM achieved a very strong start to the holiday buying season and the momentum carried on stronger than expected during the past seven weeks despite a seasonally slower time frame and the challenging economic environment,” said Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-chief executive, in a statement this morning.
“We are pleased with our leadership and momentum in the market after shipping our 50 millionth BlackBerry smartphone in January and introducing a range of new products that are achieving exceptional early results and helping attract record levels of new customers to the BlackBerry platform.”
All in all, I think things are looking good for RIM considering the fiscal gloom that is hovering over the economy. Once their store kicks into full gear, we can expect the company to see some cash flowing around the company which will give it a real edge over other smartphone manufacturers.
[Via]
Posted on February 10, 2009, at 1:45 PM .
Amazon has done a great job of lowering the price on the BlackBerry Storm with a $250 instant discount. The final price is $99 with an agreement that you will not cancel or change your service within 181 days of activating the device (and also sign a two year contract, but hey). This definitely beats Verizon’s price of $199 after a $50 online rebate. So if you’re in the market for a Storm, don’t miss out on this bargain.
Super Cheap Amazon BlackBerry Storm Deal
Posted on February 10, 2009, at 1:19 PM .
MocoNews is reporting that Handmark has purchased software developer FreeRange for an undisclosed sum. FreeRange is a mobile RSS applications firm with a fairly popular RSS reader, but I find them more exciting for their work on the Wall Street Journal and AP News applications.
FreeRange has said it will use the additional resources from Handmark to expand its video support, and iPhone and Android support, but I’m hoping they’ll put their magic touch on Handmark’s own PocketExpress application. The AP News app developed by FreeRange is clean, pretty and slick, and I’d love to see a rebuilt PocketExpress from the ground up.
|via MocoNews|
Posted on February 10, 2009, at 12:14 PM .
It appears as though our friends in the Waterloo area were spot on when they pinged us that the upcoming BlackBerry 9300 that BGR revealed yesterday was not in fact codenamed ‘Gemini’. BG did some digging of his own, and come up with this information:
Okay, we’ve got to have a little chat here about the BlackBerry 9300 which we referred to as the “Gemini.” Indeed there was some confusion on our part (yes, we made a boo-boo and we mistakenly referred to the BlackBerry 9300 as the “Gemini”. It is not the Gemini. The Gemini is apparently the codename for the BlackBerry 8325, a T-Mobile GSM/EDGE device with OS 5.0, a 320×240 display, 2 megapixel camera, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (they’re going to put 802.11n on a crap device?). It was slated to come out in September of this year but with 8900 Curve about to hit up T-Mobile we’d think it pretty stupid of RIM to release it, especially since it’s got some less than desirable specs. With all of this said, we can assure you that the device we were talking about is indeed real.
Hmm. So while the BlackBerry 9300 is not the ‘Gemini’, it’s 3G+Curve=Yay factor still leaves me burning with desire. As for the ‘actual’ Gemini, the BlackBerry 8325? Not so much.
|via BGR|
