RIM is dead, declares analyst

In an interview today with CNBC, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has said he believes RIM is "going out of business."

The analyst was asked whether he thought there was room in the market for the BlackBerry maker, which he flatly answered "No."

RIM recently had a terrible earnings quarter, showing a loss of $125 million compared to a profit of $1 billion in the same period last year. The company's new BlackBerry 10 devices have been delayed for so long that they are already outdated and are still months away from release.

Additionally, the analyst says Apple stock shares will head to $1000 a share, making the company close to being worth $1 trillion.

On the Windows Phone front, Munster says Nokia and Microsoft are strong together but the market has become a "two-horse race between Apple and Samsung."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 3 Apr 2012 14:20

A5J4DX

woohooo!

3.4.2012 18:12 #1

Agv_android (unverified)

I wonder if he can also give me the lotto numbers. Stick to weather predictions your odds are better.

3.4.2012 20:06 #2

Azuran

Originally posted by A5J4DX: woohooo! I think its funny how business mortality has become a spectator sport. I think we've all been aware of RIM's pending demise for a long time. While we all might be glad that poor decision making is being punished, impending layoffs and the impact on their families is nothing to be cheerful about.

3.4.2012 20:22 #3

SomeBozo

Interesting about his claims about Apple, if you asked and analyst back in 1996 if Apple would survive the answer would have been a quick "NO". Now look at Apple today.

3.4.2012 22:38 #4

plutonash

Originally posted by SomeBozo: Interesting about his claims about Apple, if you asked and analyst back in 1996 if Apple would survive the answer would have been a quick "NO". Now look at Apple today.
Sadly, there's no Steve Jobs to come and save RIM.

"Cable thief is a victimless crime."

3.4.2012 22:48 #5

Morreale

I think its still way to early to call RIM dead. If BlackBerry 10 is made out to be a solid OS, with a decent ad campaign they'll be able to pick things up again. Outdated hardware or not. The majority of people don't know sh!t about hardware besides how many megapixels the camera is.

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4.4.2012 00:53 #6

neronut

This is all loonacy!!! Their profits are around $4 Billion dollars. Their "loss" (as in they didn't make it, so they didn't really lose it) is 125 Million.

$4,000,000,000 - profit
$0,125,000,000 - "loss"

Their loss is a whole unit smaller than their profit. People need to start thinking for themselves and not listen to analysts. It's like movie critics, some love the movie, others do not. It is all subjective. I'm not denying RIM has been making some poor decisions, but they are still quite viable.

The other thing companies are forced to do is make quarterly profits, that is ever 3 months. When the profits for a 3 month period are in the billions I think they need to invest more in their service/product.

Scott

4.4.2012 01:16 #7

xtago

Originally posted by plutonash: Originally posted by SomeBozo: Interesting about his claims about Apple, if you asked and analyst back in 1996 if Apple would survive the answer would have been a quick "NO". Now look at Apple today.
Sadly, there's no Steve Jobs to come and save RIM. you don't need steve jobs to save a company.

probably best he's dead anyway as apple probably be bankrupt in a few years, all the side kicks are far too crap due to steve being far too controlling with everything.

4.4.2012 04:11 #8

DVDBack23

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4.4.2012 18:10 #9

voyager

RIM needs Steve Jobs to learn how to steal technology.
RIM always was good company with good service but the fashion of touch screen technology is killing the company they also appears to late with update technology.

5.4.2012 07:16 #10

ChikaraNZ

Originally posted by neronut: This is all loonacy!!! Their profits are around $4 Billion dollars. Their "loss" (as in they didn't make it, so they didn't really lose it) is 125 Million.

$4,000,000,000 - profit
$0,125,000,000 - "loss"

Their loss is a whole unit smaller than their profit. People need to start thinking for themselves and not listen to analysts. It's like movie critics, some love the movie, others do not. It is all subjective. I'm not denying RIM has been making some poor decisions, but they are still quite viable.

The other thing companies are forced to do is make quarterly profits, that is ever 3 months. When the profits for a 3 month period are in the billions I think they need to invest more in their service/product. If you've been making profits in the past, you can handle short term losses. You use the 'buffer' you have built up. For us individuals, it's our savings; for the companies it's their capital/shareholders funds.

Either way, losses aren't sustainable forever. I think what the analyst is alluding to, is that RIM may not be able to turn this around. If they continue to slide, and continue to make losses with no turnaround in sight, then they would at some point pull the plug. Of course, if this does indeed happen, it's likely to be many years away

5.4.2012 07:23 #11

kfir1

RIM needs to go away QUICK... useless stupid phone.

5.4.2012 21:28 #12

Azuran

Originally posted by ChikaraNZ: Originally posted by neronut: This is all loonacy!!! Their profits are around $4 Billion dollars. Their "loss" (as in they didn't make it, so they didn't really lose it) is 125 Million.

$4,000,000,000 - profit
$0,125,000,000 - "loss"

Their loss is a whole unit smaller than their profit. People need to start thinking for themselves and not listen to analysts. It's like movie critics, some love the movie, others do not. It is all subjective. I'm not denying RIM has been making some poor decisions, but they are still quite viable.

The other thing companies are forced to do is make quarterly profits, that is ever 3 months. When the profits for a 3 month period are in the billions I think they need to invest more in their service/product. If you've been making profits in the past, you can handle short term losses. You use the 'buffer' you have built up. For us individuals, it's our savings; for the companies it's their capital/shareholders funds.

Either way, losses aren't sustainable forever. I think what the analyst is alluding to, is that RIM may not be able to turn this around. If they continue to slide, and continue to make losses with no turnaround in sight, then they would at some point pull the plug. Of course, if this does indeed happen, it's likely to be many years away To piggy back on this you can carry back net operating losses 2 years (or forward 20 years) to receive tax refunds.

6.4.2012 02:14 #13

plazma247

At the end of the day, we all know rims not doing well, does it really need an overpaid analyst to tell us this.. i think not.

At the end of the day, rim has for a long time sold phones to people who wanted mobile email and had all been brain washed into beliving a blackberry was the only device that could do this, where as anyone with any knowlage will tell you phones have long had pop3 and imap clients built in.

So after people waking upto the fact that you can email on anything these days and you dont need rims back end servers to enjoy pushed email.

Them saying they are going to focus more on business is wash as well, as many admins i know would prefer to give their users exchange access (compatible with most devices) or google apps for business (also compatible with most devices)... If they are going to evolve out of this, they need to stop fooling them selves. Open up BBM to be completely cross platform and consider the occasional advert and get paid for the ads.

And consider rethinking their mail system, or do like google has done with gmail, become an mail provider but also provide pop3/imap access, apps for other devices that don't natively support their email system.

And yes im going to say it, consider to stop wasting so much money developing BBOS and instead consider what android could offer them as a base OS. At the end of the day nokia tried long and hard to hold keep symbian alive and look where it got them.

The latter being probably the biggest and hardest pill to swallow, but it would save them a mint and allow them to compete again, even if they only reserved their mail system for their own branded devices, which i think is pointless.

They can either try and hold onto a business that's moved on and doesn't really exist as it used to or simple evolve and survive.

6.4.2012 15:03 #14

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