First of all if you are not familiar with BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), it is simply BlackBerry's (BBRY) proprietary messaging platform. It is hugely popular and considered one of BlackBerry's key USPs that drove users back to BlackBerry. It is so important to the BlackBerry offering that Heins mentioned that they had made decision because they were confident in the success of the BB10 platform. Clearly this difficult decision is a tacit acknowledgment of the success of the BB10 platform as Heins feels he may not need this USP any more to attract users. (see comments here)

The market (Scotia and a few other analyst) had expected the big news today might be that BBM would be rolled out ONLY to BES 10 server users. In essence a slow step introduction in cross platform messaging offered as an incentive to enterprise users. What Happened?

Those Canucks Gave It All Away

Three months after the launch of the BlackBerry (BBRY) Z10, a BlackBerry with a touch screen has managed to not only stop, but also seriously reverse, years of market share erosion. The stats below show you the BlackBerry's vendor market share based on browser observation.

A few words about methodology: Statcounter Global is a very good 'non-mobile' industry barometer in my opinion. This company is in the business of providing stats, similar to Google analytics, for website owners. They do not sell research to hedge funds or analysts. Using the network of client sites (largely English language) they are able to track browser usages, desktop vs mobile, screen resolutions etc. They can then slice that data up by country and device types. As such, they have no 'skin' in the game and are not fazed about the mobile OS wars and neither the browser wars. They simply report data for

Hoping to get a sense of the excitement behind the launch of BlackBerry's (BBRY) flagship product, the Q10, I went to the high-end UK department store Selfridges at 9:00 a.m. and then again this afternoon.

What You Need to Know:

Upon arriving, there were lots of exporters buying 20+ units each. They had suitcases, and one used the suitcase to block people in the escalator so his pal could be first to the counter. Carphone Warehouse had broken customers out into two lines -- single unit buyers like me and "multi-unit" buyers.

The Set-Up

Carphone Warehouse is the highest selling retail location in the UK. It has about 6 massive BlackBerry retail booths, fully staffed. It is basically BlackBerry land. I managed to overhear that it had launched with 2000 units that morning. The staff at CPW is leagues above those found at carrier stores as far as training and

Today, in the middle of a progressive short squeeze for BlackBerry (BBRY), rampant selling appeared out of nowhere to drive the stock price down. What was the awful news? No one knew.

Bear raids are illegal. Selling stock for the sole purpose of driving the price is outright manipulation and a banned activity in most capital markets. Basically, if you are going to sell the hell out of BlackBerry, you need a reason to do it, otherwise you could get investigated. You need a cover story.

Shorts - Using Obscure Analyst and Tech Media Editors for 'Cover'

I wrote an article for Seeking Alpha last February that described in detail how this fraud is perpetrated "BlackBerry And Forbes: Battleground Stocks And Headline Risks". In this article, I showed you the symbiotic relationship between Brian Blair of Wedge Partners and Eric Savitz at Forbes (Savitz's since left Forbes). In

This comical headline that seems to have appeared here by Detwiler Fenton and seemingly led to a massive sell off in BlackBerry (BBRY) in the pre market bear raid. Upon careful and obvious examination there statement it one must ask:

"How can people return more units than were sold?"

To lend truth to this horrific headline, the stock saw a significant sell-off in premarket where it is easiest to manipulate due to lack of volume. This is certainly not the first nor the last bear raid to scare BBRY shareholders.

What We Saw in the UK and What Users Report in the US

Having personally visited over 50 stores in London over a two-month period, one comment that stood out was the comment that they had very little problems with the phones post sales. One Vodafone manager attributed this the OS being more stable than past BB OS's. Please

BlackBerry Z10 UK Pricing Remains at a Premium, Despite Misleading Analyst Report

In an attempt not to get sued, I'm not going to name the "analyst" mentioned above, but I am going to go through his points and refute them one by one for you. You will be shocked at the truly awful hit piece this was. You will not be shocked that a major outlet chose to print it yesterday. Bless his dear heart, the author did finally note this 'analyst' was a bear.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Dearest of Them All?

Before you read any further I would like to show you pricing for the Z10 vs. the iPhone, the Xperia Z, and the HTC One (the last two being brand new, premium 'hot' handsets.) There are really only two phone retailers in the UK and this is the second one.

Would BlackBerry (BBRY),

Does this weekend's unabashedly glowing review of the BlackBerry (BBRY) Z10 mark an inflection point in this brand's revival? Long left for dead by even its most avid users, BlackBerry has been furiously working to right a fast sinking ship. The results seem to be paying off in numerous reports of brisk sales and mentions like this one in London's FT:

"Within 30 seconds of picking it up, I felt as if I had the iPhone 6 in my hand. Running iOS 7. It is an awesome phone, with a pleasing new operating system, BB10...could have the folks at Cupertino gnashing their teeth, because whatever iPhone upgrade they launch later this year or next, it will surely struggle to catch up."

Could BlackBerry have ever hoped for a warmer response from the mainline financial community press? Could BlackBerry have created a product which such draw that it can pull

BlackBerry Outselling the iPhone5 and the Galaxy S3 in the UK's Largest Retail Store and Crushing them in Business Sales

Given last week's slew of misleading headlines and remarks concerning sales of the (BBRY) BlackBerry Z10, I had to embark on a final round of channel checking in freezing London weather. If you have sold short shares of BlackBerry in anticipation of a disaster, I suggest you enjoy the 'flow' of this article. Alternatively you may want to 'peak' forward to the section titled "My UK Carriers Business Tele Sales Team" in anticipation of reading this before your other short selling fellows read it. I believe this article will once and for all establish the outstanding success of the Z10's launch in the UK. This article suggests that BlackBerry intends to Pre-Announce this before 'Mid-March' Peak to section titled "Beware

Certain reports by US analysts paint a deceiving and self-serving picture of bleak sales for BlackBerry (BBRY) Z10 in the UK. I doubt said analysts have been walking around in London and talking to branch managers of the largest UK retailers to do their channel checks. Whether using Carphone Warehouse's online inventory tool or actually calling stores, I'm not quite sure how they get these channel checks done, but one thing I can assure you is that the process needs to be done in person and preferably not by a guy in a suit with a US accent. Whenever I have called stores I have often gotten lukewarm response as these kids are busy and they don't want to be answering surveys for people who are not going to be buying phones.

Carphone Warehouse:

• No longer sells the Z10 without contract online.
• Sim-free sales are only in stores and this

We in the UK have recently unhappily discovered that we were sold beef that was, rather, 100% horsemeat. Similarly, readers of Forbes and BGR will realize today that they didn't read breaking news Friday regarding Samsung's (SSNLF.PK) foray into the enterprise business, but rather that they read an old story spruced up by bearish BlackBerry (BBRY) shop Fenton Detwiler and designed to drum scary headlines:

The second bear raid on BlackBerry in a week was predicated on research from Fenton Detwiler and kindly headlined out the door by BGR and BlackBerry favorite, Eric Savitz at Forbes. Here is the excerpt from BGR (for a change, emphasis added):

"Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton said in a note on Friday morning that Samsung plans to unveil a new enterprise platform at the Mobile World Congress trade show later this month that will compete with BlackBerry's next-generation BlackBerry 10

When a stock such as BlackBerry (BBRY) is caught in a vicious tug of war, with half the analysts on the Street rating it a sell (short) and the other half a buy, readers and publishers need to be very careful to take note of which side is being presented. One would expect that if a prestigious news outlet were to write an article presenting either one of these explicit viewpoints, that news organization should have a responsibility to its readers to clearly point out the agenda of the analyst they are quoting. One would also expect that news outlet not to sensationalize an analyst opining into a headline and a de facto mobile carrier statement.

Yesterday Eric Savitz of Forbes magazine managed to avoid just such disclosures when he presented the viewpoint of a leading BlackBerry bearish analyst, Brian Blair of Wedge Partners. A quick Google search will

Every once in an while investing tragedy occurs and shares, either long or short, are caught on the wrong side of a trade and slaughtered. In the case of Short Flight BlackBerry (BBRY), tragedy occurred today when they all followed Wall Street group think: BBRY was like Palm and doomed to go to 0. Analysts sometimes like simple paradigms they can feed to their clients, and the Palm look-alike trade was simply too tempting. But it was not only Captain Suva of Citi Airlines that sent his clients down to the abyss, he was well accompanied by Air Morgan Stanley's Research team as mentioned last September here. In fact, almost half the street had a sell on BBRY, I just cited the two most comical ones.

A Broken Trade

Blackberry was a company that was left for dead and beyond hope according short folklore. To be fair, past

I'm gonna let you know…at the end

Following Friday's early channel checks of the BlackBerry (BBRY) BB10 launch, here are some telling anecdotal tales from London over the weekend:

I walked into a Phones4U on Oxford Street (flagship store) Saturday. The store too was just ending sales of its 'Sim-free handset' due to lack of stock. The manager was genuinely shocked by what he had seen. There was only a handful of contract-only phones left. To be fair, this location had devoted a full half of its retail space to BB10, the entire second floor. It was impressive BB Day in that store. Time was 2PM Saturday.

On Sunday AM, I called numerous Phones4U London stores and they reported being out of stock or minor stock restricted for contracts.

I checked out another major Phones4U outlet in a mall, it had three handsets left, also for contracts only. The

A lot has happened since my last and fortuitous Blackberry (a.k.a. Research in Motion) (RIMM) piece when the stock was sub $7 and I called a buy. The stock has run to $18 only to retreat on a mixture of:

· Sell the news

· Investor disappointment at US launch dates on both models

· Short hedge funds creaming the stock intraday to cause a little panic

The shares sit around $13 now and what are investors to do now?

Quick Channel Check Time:

First, you need to examine Ebay in the US. Phones are selling for $1700. I haven't seen this kind of off-market pricing since iPhone 1.

I took a walk down High Street Kensington in London today and walked into three stores:

Phones 4u:

The store has had numerous inquiries so far and are very surprised. One gentleman walked in with 12 BB 10 phones

Morgan Stanley's RIMM Shot:

Yesterday Morgan Stanley (MS) released a research note on Research in Motion (RIMM) titled "Research In Motion Ltd. FQ2 Preview: The Downward Spiral Continues;" Morgan Stanley's sell to $5 thesis is presented succinctly in its opening salvo, paragraph 1:

We set low probability BB10 becomes a viable 3rd mobile OS, as checks uncovered NO developer support, and suggest BB10 devices debut at the end of CQ1, taking the stock towards our $5 Bear case.

The premise here is simple: there are no apps for BlackBerry's new OS, and none will be developed. Morgan Stanley then continue with a more detailed explanation:

We are finding literally ZERO support for RIM's new BB10 OS, following our latest developer checks, raising the possibility that when RIM finally throws its big BB10 launch party, nobody shows up. We believe a thriving app ecosystem is vital to creating a new mobile

On December 16th, something odd happened concerning analysts' coverage of the co-location sector: 24 hours separated a new BUY to $64 price target recommendation on DLR from Goldman and a Sell to $40 price target sell recommendation by UBS. What was even odder was that UBS had previously pegged DLR with a BUY to $65.

What lay behind the stark UBS call on DLR and DFT? Was there a smoking gun that UBS saw, but the other analysts all missed?

A little background might help shed some light on how this divergence might have come about:

In early October, Equinix (EQIX) surprised the market when it warned that its third quarter and 2010 revenue will miss expectations. Equinix said third quarter revenue will be $328 million to $330 million, down from its previous outlook (a roughly 2% top line miss). For the year, Equinix projected revenue of $1.21 billion, below