Monthly Archive for June, 2009Page 10 of 29

Reuters is wrong about RIM’s stock valuation and market strategy

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on June 19, 2009, at 1:13 PM
in Editorials, News and Spotlight
.
12 Comments

Reuters

Yesterday, we heard RIM give its Q1 2010 fiscal conference call and I get the feeling Reuters wasn’t even listening. They had the following to say:

“Research In Motion offered investors an outlook yesterday that fell short of some expectations, sending the BlackBerry maker’s stock sliding five per cent even as the company reported a higher quarterly profit that topped forecasts.”

First of all, the stock sliding 5% is not necessarily correlated with the conference call. In my opinion, RIM did an excellent job of reassuring shareholders that the company was strong financially. The outlook they offered did not fall short of expectations. In fact, across the board, financial results were better than predicted and Jim addressed the question period adequately.

According to Reuters, the drop “may reflect concern over a competitive landscape that has become more cluttered with alternatives to the BlackBerry.”

The truth of the matter is that RIM does not see other smartphones as a threat. They addressed this issue very clearly in the conference call.

First, the new iPhone pricing is industry standard and nothing RIM can’t match. Apple is simply selling year-old hardware at a discount. This is nothing new and RIM has been doing this for all their handsets. Secondly, the smartphone market is growing fast enough to allow more device competition. The pie is getting larger and it’s not a matter of who gets what slice.

Reuters also points to the global economy as a reason for the share price drop. Sure, while the recession is affecting IT markets, this isn’t something unique to RIM and therefore shouldn’t be lumped together with saying that RIM didn’t meet expectations of shareholders.

As explained in the conference call, revenue is mainly affected by seasonal trends and the summer is inevitably going to be slow. As a shareholder listening to the call, I might want to move my stock out for the summer, and buy back when it has come down a little. My prediction is that you will see the stock jump significantly after the summer, when the fall and holiday seasons are sure to boost revenues.

[Via]

Viigo updates website with modules and new video for enterprise

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on June 19, 2009, at 8:43 AM
in News
.
3 Comments

Like any useful application for BlackBerry, Viigo has an enterprise version. Included in this enterprise version, is the ability to get financial data pushed to your device. The above video demonstrates how an enterprise may choose to use Viigo.

There is also a new Modules section to the Viigo website. These pages provide an overview of what the application is capable of.

Get the latest version of Viigo for your BlackBerry.

Buy your dad a BlackBerry for Father’s Day

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on June 19, 2009, at 7:25 AM
in News
.
3 Comments

blackberry curve 8900

Father’s Day is June 21st of this year and he’s expecting a shiny new BlackBerry. I know, we talked about it.

Blackberry Curve 8900 (AT&T or T-Mobile) – The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the ultimate phone for productivity. Get your workaholic dad out of the office more with real-time push email, organizer applications, document viewing and editing, and integrated WiFi. And because the BlackBerry Curve 8900 works in over 200 countries, he will always be just a phone call away. BlackBerry Cool price: FREE with AT&T or T-Mobile new activation.

Blackberry Storm (Verizon Wireless) – The Blackberry Storm is Blackberry’s first touch screen model, and has a brilliant 3.25″ display that uses the breakthrough SurePress technology. The internationally compatible Storm comes loaded with a Rhapsody-capable music player, a 3.2-MP camera with advanced functions, 1 GB of on-board memory, a full featured web browser, and integrated GPS. The full BlackBerry experience on a touchscreen device. BlackBerry Cool price: carriers won’t allow us to show you the price, you have to see for yourself.

See more deals on BlackBerry devices that are so low we can’t legally tell you about them.

Research in Motion 1st Quarter Fiscal 2010 Conference Call

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on June 19, 2009, at 6:59 AM
in Editorials, News, Spotlight and Top-Story
.
0 Comments

research-in-motion-headquarters

Yesterday evening, RIM held their 1st quarter fiscal 2010 conference call. Adele Ebbs, RIM’s Vice President of Investor Relations moderated the call, while Jim Balsillie fielded questions of a strategic nature. The major news in this call included:

  • RIM sees a whopping 80% increase in consumer subscribers.
  • Enterprise subscribers are down for seasonal and architectural reasons.
  • Jim Balsillie dismisses iPhone and Pre as a threat.
  • International sales are strong and steady but come with risk.
  • Jim talks about the BlackBerry OS with respect to the smartphone market.

RIM sees a whopping 80% increase in consumer subscribers.

Overall, financial results from RIM are strong. Total revenue is up 3.4 billion, up 53% from last year. Revenues are slightly higher than predicted during RIM’s conference call last year. Revenues can generally be attributed to strong device sales in the consumer space, and new enterprise functionality.

Over 80% of RIM’s new subscribers this quarter came from the consumer base. The massive growth in the BIS subscriber base can be attributed to both local North American growth, and strong international sales, particularly in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. These developing markets, tend to primarily use BIS, even in enterprise.

This new shift to the consumer side is increasing loads being put on the infrastructure. Consumers are demanding rich media services such as streaming video, which uses more than 100 percent the network capacity of a voice call. BlackBerry efficiency and network capacity are going to address this issue, as devices become more efficient, and carriers offer new technologies such as LTE.

The BlackBerry Tour is this quarter’s big step to address the consumer shift. The BlackBerry Tour has the media capabilities to address the power user market. While you may have seen very little from RIM in terms of promotion, I believe this is indicative of a marketing shift at RIM Corporate. The firm seems to be giving the promotional responsibilities to the carrier. The message from RIM seems to be: “we just make them, you sell them.”

While carriers will be the driving force behind device promotion, this transition hasn’t been fully realized as of yet. There seems to be a miscommunication between RIM and the leading carriers in that RIM mentioned several times during the call that carrier inventory levels are consistently low. They also predict these levels to remain low. So while carriers are taking more responsibility for sales and marketing, they don’t seem to be managing the logistics behind these new responsibilities very well.
Continue reading a detailed roundup of the information presented in RIM’s conference call

Chinese BlackBerry clone calls itself BlockBerry

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on June 18, 2009, at 3:31 PM
in News
.
24 Comments

090618-blockberry-01

In Chinese this reads “”Obama have BlackBerry, I have BlockBerry.” This BlockBerry device is a Windows Mobile 6.1 BlockBerry with a 460MHZ processor, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and supports 3G and EDGE.

Does this mean that the above device is a BlockBerry Storm? I can’t wait until they launch the BlockBerry Tour in China.

[Via]

Upcoming OS 5.0 BlackBerry Messenger roundup

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on June 18, 2009, at 3:07 PM
in News
.
10 Comments

blackberry messenger

BGR has been dropping a ton of leaks about the upcoming BlackBerry Messenger that comes with OS 5.0. So far, we know the following about the new BBM:

  • SMS support – BlackBerry devices are finally getting threaded SMS support.
  • PIN barcode scanning – Rather than find your PIN and reading or sending it, you will be able to scan a barcode to get the PIN. Just press the barcode option and another BlackBerry with a camera can scan it.
  • Backup/Restore Messenger list to microSD card —This is going to be huge, especially for people who change devices a lot.
  • Avatar support — set your own avatar using the Camera or saved photo on your device (this is displayed locally as well as shown next to your Messenger name on your friend’s buddy list).
  • GPS location integration — you can now set permissions so friends can always see your location, have to request it each time, or never can see it.
  • Proximity sensor — we’re guessing this will let you know if you’re within a certain distance of friends (pending, of course, you’re both set to share locations freely with each other).
  • Set conversation subjects — this will allow you to organize your convos on the main Messenger screen and label them with subjects to keep track of all your conversations.
  • Homescreen support — you can pin/sticky actual Messenger contacts directly to the homescreen for easy access!

    • This new messenger client is becoming so powerful it’s almost a selling feature for the device on its own. I would like to see BBM import other chat clients to make a one-stop-shop for communicating with all your contacts.

    [Via]

    Bad Behavior has blocked 27956 access attempts in the last 7 days.