While RIM (RIMM) CEO Thorston Heins believes the firm has "a great future" despite its huge...

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TomasViewPoint Comments (4247)
 
Well this was not very optomistic and comes from a very credible analyst.

Likely right unless RIM management is super aggressive on costs and pull some rabbits out of the hat. If suppliers get nervous then the problems really mount. This might be the un-virtous circle going down.
3 Jun 2012, 05:26 PM Reply Like

Herr Hansa Comments (2916)
 
Looks to me that Heins is taking the employee level back down to early 2010 levels, prior to the hiring spree. At that time the BlackBerry user base was 45million. It now stands at 78million. Due to the contract basis and cost involved in purchasing a smartphone, even a low end BlackBerry Curve, I would not expect a mass change, though the trick is capturing those users later on with a new system, which is BB10. The other thing from the company figures is that around 40% of their user base is still on older generation devices. So there is some possibility they could return to the level of their 2010 user base. Obviously that would be terrible for a "growth" industry, as new users are still entering the smartphone market. At the very least, the company was profitable in 2010. So that means I would see a worse case for the company of a return to past levels. investors would not be pleased with that, so I think the only way to be a successful technology niche, which is what that implies, would be to start issuing a dividend. Eventually that might also prompt a sale of the hardware business, due to lower margins, and a focus on a niche backend business services smartphone management platform, which now accounts for 1/4th of revenues.

All things now point towards a smaller company, and only solid BB10 sales volume numbers will change the opinions of analysts. That will take more than a couple quarters of sales figures. Basically I see 2013 as a make or break year for BlackBerry smartphones. Either they sell at greater volumes than their previous smartphones, or they have failed in a turn-around.
3 Jun 2012, 07:39 PM Reply Like

TomasViewPoint Comments (4247)
 
HH

Agree with a lot of what you are saying. One critical unknown in my mind is what the BB10 will cost. High end expensive phones have to compete with iPhones which also have an ecosystem around them and a variety of Android devices. In addition if Apple and Google up the ante with more value when BB10 comes out they could stall sales and kill RIM.

On the other hand if the BB10 is not higher priced it will likely not drive signficant revenues but at the same time it will cost a lot to make and market. This is all so ugly. And that is what this analyst is looking at I believe.
3 Jun 2012, 08:57 PM Reply Like

Herr Hansa Comments (2916)
 
They have kept BB10 under wraps fairly well. So far only a few aspects of the software have been shown, and no leaks on the hardware design. My view is that their real competition is Windows Phone. I have a few of the links to videos in an article on this.

http://seekingalpha.co...

Basically we could expect the screen dimensions to appear, which looks to be a 4.2" diagonal with 1280 by 720 pixel dimensions. That falls into the size realm of many Android phones. Considering that the current "obsolete" BB7 Blackberry smartphones have higher volume sales than any individual Android smartphone maker than Samsung, a worst case might be that a new BlackBerry is just viewed as another Android device, meaning a lower sales volume than they have with their current obsolete system. Weird, but possible.
3 Jun 2012, 09:09 PM Reply Like