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back to article RIM profits nearly sliced in half

Research in Motion’s shares have fallen sharply after the Blackberry maker reported that profits were down 47 per cent for its second quarter of the fiscal year. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $497 million, down from $797 million this time last year. Revenue fell 15 per cent compared to last quarter, to $4.2 billion, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Too bad

    More players, more competition. More competition, more options and lower prices. If RIM falls, it is bad for the market. I have a blackberry Torch and love it. But I don't have RIM shares. So it isn't a complete disaster, at least for me.

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  2. Mikel

    No going back now

    This was the point of no return. They could've done Android, but they were too proud. Now it's too late.

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  3. Mike S

    I really don't think it sounds that bad if they sold 200,000 playbooks? Isn't that about 199,980 more than HP?

    If they can hang on until they can support Android apps, they can probably stop the bleeding.

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    1. cloudgazer
      Reply Icon

      They shipped 200k playbooks, who knows how many actually got sold.

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  4. Gordon 10

    In denial

    If they truly believe that the playbook demand was limited by their own smartphones it's just the last shred of proof needed that RIM's management have their heads firmly stuck where the sun dont shine.

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    1. Anonymous Coward 101
      Reply Icon

      Agreed

      "Balsillie said that sales of the BlackBerry 7 phones have cut into PlayBook sales for the quarter, since demand for the new smartphones was strong."

      What a load of crap.

      I wonder if they told shareholders before releasing the Playbook that they would expect strong smartphone sales to translate to slow tablet sales, and vice versa.

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  5. Alex Rose

    I suspect at least some of RIM's problems are due to their lack of support for ActiveSync. We look after 40+ companies' IT and always recommend Android or iPhone as proper BES support is ridiculously expensive and for most of our clients the security features within Active Sync are more than sufficient.

    The abortion that is BIS email support just needs to be put out of its misery and they should support ActiveSync for smaller clients keeping BES support for enterprise customers where its features are appreciated (and affordable).

    If Blackberry devices supported ActiveSync I'd have no problem recommending them to clients as the devices themselves suit some people, but at the moment supporting them is just a bloody nightmare, so the client receives worse service, so I won't recommend them.

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    1. That Steve Guy
      Reply Icon

      Active Sync

      We pretty much ran into this as well. On our corporate deal with Vodafone we found out that Blackberries are now more expensive than an HTC Android and also don't work very well with our Exchange Server unless we fork out loads of money on a BIS Server.

      Needless to say despite the disadvantage of shorter battery life on an HTC (still inferior to blackberry) management have realised the cost benefits of android.

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  6. Andrew Moore

    History repeating itself...

    Another handset manufacturer realizing short-term fad popularity does not convert into a long-term business proposition.

    Anyone remember the Motorola RAZR??? The iPhone will be next.

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    1. Lamont Cranston
      Reply Icon

      Apple

      seem to do a good job of getting iPhone owners to

      a) hang on to their iPhones and spend at the appstore

      and

      b) upgrade from one iPhone to the next.

      They might gradually kill their own iPod market but, between the iPhone and the iPad, they appear to have their target market all sewn up.

      The RAZR was a great bit of design, that still looked current (futuristic, even) when it became obsolete. iPhones now look generic, but that doesn't seem to matter.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hold your horses there...

    Profits halved and share prices down because of lower than expected sales is hardly good news, certainly. But "circling the drain"? Come on, now. They're still making a profit and selling plenty of phones. Maybe they'll drop to 4th place and have to fire some people, maybe drop the playbook division if they can't turn things around, but I really don't see large numbers of businesses switching away from Blackberry phones any time soon, which means RIM will be around and in reasonable shape for the forseeable future.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Twin CEOs - half the performance

    What a disaster. Yes, let the staff go but also get rid of one of the CEOs...

    "Sold" all those Playbooks or "shipped" all those playbooks... over-priced, under functioning "business" tablet that wasn't.

    Amazingly, it seems teenage girls like Blackberry for the messaging, not sure about older corporate types. The iPhone has no in-built messaging... so there is a feature that means they can keep some market share but I'm guessing for lower margins...

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    1. Joe K
      Reply Icon

      Iphone messaging

      When iOS 5 comes out in a week or two it will enable free iOS-to-iOS messaging globally.

      That'll really push RIM even further to the wall, as there goes the main draw of buying one, for a non-enterprise user.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Mike S, unfortunately for RIM 200,000 "shipped" isn't the same as 200,000 sold.

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  10. TonyHoyle

    Maybe it's a US thing?

    As all the IT companies I've dealt recently with are a mixture of iphone and android, with some nokia knocking around in the background. Blackberry have all but disappeared.

    Blackberrys are popular amongst the 'yoof', and that's saving them right now but really they're a walking corpse. That's a market that is just going to dump them the next time something cool comes along.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Our massive, mostly non-US enterprise is ditching RIM. Costs of BES are insane, and no-one wants them. Its all we can do to keep up with installing VPN certs on iPhones and iPads, everyone from the boardroom to the post room wants one.

      Blackberry are still cursed with being called "the leash", and live on only in the drawers and desks of people who have no desire to even turn them on again.

      So yes, scary times for RIM.

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  11. Adam Nealis

    Share Price Fell Sharply?

    I couldn't find any evidence of that on NASDAQ or TO.

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  12. Adam Nealis
    Meh

    Oops!

    http://www.google.com/finance?q=rimm

    Pre-market: 23.49 -6.05 (-20.48%)

    Sell OCT11 28 Calls!

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  13. Adam Nealis

    I'll plug this article again.

    <http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2010/10/whats-really-wrong-with-blackberry-and.html>

    RIM are screwed.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    not looking good

    The 3 playbooks we bought and put out into the business to be trialled have all been returned by users, almost everyone getting a Torch hates them and we just decided today to trial iPhones as an alternative. I'm guessing we are not unique and Blackberry is starting to suffer in the enterprise due to a lack of compelling usable products.

    The entire OS7 isnt' backward compatible with even 9 month old handsets and we are brining in QNX to replace it within a year (which won't be compatible with older handsets) isn't helping either as it's more of a wait and see proposition.

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