Posted on 06/25/2012 8:41:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Research In Motion (RIM) is a fundamentally broken company that is likely to be split up in parts and may see fiscal year 2014 revenue of about $7 billion, well short of the $12 billion Wall Street currently expects, according to Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum became the latest analyst to ditch any hopes for RIM ahead of what is known to be a fiscal first quarter train wreck. Gelblum downgraded RIM to underweight -- a bit late to that party -- on the idea that the company won't even be able to hold its book value. Any strategic transformation will require a much smaller RIM that is broken up into parts.
Gelblum's working theory is that the next nine months for RIM will be total hell. First, RIM is going to get crushed in its August quarter amid aging devices, a delay of its BlackBerry 10 launch and a sluggish smartphone market ahead of the iPhone 5 launch. RIM's first quarter of fiscal 2013 will be a mess and the second quarter outlook will be worse.
This nine months of hell could be longer should BlackBerry 10 devices -- likely in the back half of 2012 -- be delayed. In other words, current Wall Street estimates are way off on RIM. Analysts expect RIM to deliver and average of $3 billion in quarterly revenue over the next two years. Gelblum's argument is that RIM's revenue base will nearly be halved.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
I guess I am the last guy on the planet who loves BlackBerry. I am posting on Playbook, tethered to a 4g 9860. They are fantastic!
I guess they were rolled by Android and Apple.
With a product portfolio that remains largely unchanged for the past 10 years, and Sr. Management who appear to be foolishly making knee-jerk decisions; I do not see this company surviving much past Christmas. I expect this company to be purchased and broken up much earlier than the experts.
With the Playbook coming out, and the latest OS already announced - version 10; this means that if you buy a brand spanking new Blackberry today - it will be orphaned without support at the end of the year.
This does not either inspire confidence, nor motivate a company to purchase a replacement phone for the next 3-6 months. Or, they could purchase an Android/iPhone today - and get what they need accomplished.
Blackberry remained complaicent and failed to innovate for 10 years; this is the price you pay for complaicency in a commodity market (and yes, cell phones are indeed a commodity).
Not the last. I love my BlackBerry. It's also the phone of choice for Sarah Palin and (was) Andrew Breitbart. We're in good company. Bad marketing, great phone.
I was a Blackberry Boy for a long time, since like 2007 or so.... they lost me lately, I am now a Droid Dude.
RIM makes crappy devices, have been forced to use them for the past 7 years, the BB Torch is a complete POS.
Be sure to recalibrate your barometer, Obama loves his as well.
I still have a BB.
It’s rugged, secure and does everything I need.
They should have gotten on the Android bandwagon. Their most important feature was their fast and secure network of servers. They could have developed Android clients for their services.
This is rapidly becoming a moot differentiator.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.