back to article RIM reports more losses, lower sales, lots of cash

Research in Motion saw its shares continue the climb that began earlier this week after it posted a Q2 earnings report that beat analyst expectations, but the struggling BlackBerry maker's revenue disappointed once again and its losses continue. On Wednesday, RIM's stock price was buoyed by optimism about its upcoming …

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  1. nuked
    FAIL

    Basics

    They were holding $1bn in stock? Are u kidding?

    Against an existing user base of 80 million people. When and why did they suddenly think they could double their handset sales between one financial year and another.

    1. asdf

      Re: Basics

      Well you know what the market thinks of your company when your stock price rises because of losing slightly less money than you said before.

  2. PhilBack
    Megaphone

    I for sure would love to see them coming back into the arena

    Frankly, my Bold 9000 suffered problems and the customer care of RIM was basically utterly low end. There isn't any other word for their ability to serve me as a customer.

    So, after going through that, I went Android. And boy, that wasn't as good for my productivity when it comes to texting and writing content on the phone. So, there is a definitive advantage to all of their shortcuts and stuff for the power user.

    If they do get their act together, like merge Android with their expertise on keyboards and productivity, I'll all be back in with them. Now, we have WhatsApp that covers much of what BBM has to offer. And it works nicely on even a super cheap phone.

    Let's have RIM give us value for money and we may be back with them. Not sure the dismal failure of the Playbook (that heavy little brick) and the bad customer service will help in getting there in any way.

    1. James 51

      Re: I for sure would love to see them coming back into the arena

      In defense of that little heavy brick, it is an excellent tablet with the bridge U.S.P. All it needs is USB to go and I'd be completely happy with mine.

    2. Ambivalous Crowboard
      Thumb Up

      +1

      I have a Galaxy S II. The shitty Samsung email client doesn't show me all the emails that Outlook actually has in its inbox when connected to an Exchange server. The calendar app whilst is very clever at aggregating any data source I throw at it, messes up recurring appointments and the reminder/notification feature is shit.

      Email is also slow and inefficient use of the screen's real estate and you can't customise it.

      I, for one, can't wait for my contract to end so I can get rid of this and get a Blackberry again.

      Also I like the way that I can put in autotext shortcuts and things like typing "il" change to "I'll" without any user interaction. Very smart.

      FAO RIM: Facebook on Blackberry is nowhere near as advanced as its counterparts. Add video upload and things like that and it'd make a lot of Blackberry owners resent the device less.

      1. DrXym

        Re: +1

        I have a Playbook and 2.0 and I don't think much of the email client. It's not broken by any stretch but it does feel a bit clumsy, especially its unhelpful and somewhat annoying new mail notifications, and when you need to flag a bunch of emails at once for some action. It doesn't rotate either into portrait mode although 2.1 is supposed to fix that when it finally appears.

        So far the most productive email client I've used is the GMail one for android. I haven't tried the generic mail client and I could well see it as being pretty basic.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I for sure would love to see them coming back into the arena

      The preview videos of BB10 look really good, they've thought about usabiity quite a lot. Why would they bother with being just another Android rebadger?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I for sure would love to see them coming back into the arena

        Exactly. They cannot compete with Samsung. Whereas they can almost certainly survive as the go-to supplier for business devices for mobile users who need proper security. And, if they get it right, for IT professionals who want their little personal marketing box to say "I am a serious person who is more concerned with answering support emails than playing Angry Birds."

        The "leaked" BB10 information suggests that it is going to be very good indeed for heavy messaging. The idea that whatever foreground application you are running can be slid to one side to view the current alerts and notifications underneath while still running unaffected is excellent. And a square screen for the keyboard version makes obvious sense. The user/business environment switch is a good idea especially if it can be made to happen automatically in secure environments (so that in the trading room the camera and voice recording is switched off, for instance).

        Running Android or Windows Phone on a traditional BB was never going to make sense. Tight integration of the hardware design and the OS has worked well for Apple. RIM have to try to pull off the same trick, but in a different market sector.

  3. James 51

    It's nice to know they aren't going to abandon OS7 when BB10 launches.

    From the reviews I have been reading for the iphone 5 Apple's lead is narrowing. Nokia is hanging in at the bottom segment of the market to. They just need to hang in their till they get the right product out (and it becomes fashionable to knock another company). Plus a lot of professional market watchers care only about the US market. Don't underestimate the long term importance of growing in emerging markets.

    1. Mark C Casey

      It's got nothing to do with fashion when it comes to knocking Nokia.

      Their recent hardware and design is solid, it's the software they have gone with that's the problem. That and some of their marketing efforts have just been plain bad.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        There's nothing wrong with Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 will be even better.

        Try it, you might like it. It's the fastest mobile OS I've ever used. Makes iOS seem clunky.

        1. Mark C Casey

          "There's nothing wrong with Windows Phone 7"

          Does not support native compiled code for the processor architecture

          Does not have multitasking

          Does not allow browser engines other than IE

          Does not support OpenGL thereby limiting its usefulness for cross platform games

          MS have too many limits upon the manufacturers (for example, 800x480 is the maximum screen resolution)

          I can continue if you like?

          If you can't admit to a platforms limitations and failings, then how can you ever expect it to improve?

  4. cosmo the enlightened
    Happy

    Hmm Let's see

    $235m losses in this quarter... a little over $2b in cash. If we exclude the last quarter's half billion dollar loss as an exceptional result and use the $235m loss as a running average...

    ...add in higher investment to launch, advertise, and produce hardware for a new platform in a croweded smartphone market... then I figure...

    2014 will be an interesting year for RIM.

    If there is a share bubble rise at the launch of RIM 10 I would suggest to those of you who still own any RIM stock to sell and eat the loss.

    1. ratfox

      No need to wait for the launch

      The stock went up 20% after last night's announcement…

      1. Mark Dowling
        Thumb Down

        Re: No need to wait for the launch

        The Reg doesn't do good news when it comes to RIM.

  5. DrXym

    BB 10

    Some of the vids for BB 10 look really cool. It does look very intuitive and easy to use and some stuff like business / user modes would be appealing.

    The burning issue though is app support. Without the apps it doesn't matter how damned good the phone is. People like their apps and if they're not there then sales will suffer.

  6. Matthew 25
    Headmaster

    "although no devices are due to ship until the first calendar year of 2013."

    How many calendar years are there in 2013?

    1. Pedigree-Pete
      WTF?

      @James 51, whilst we're doing pedantry

      From the reviews I have been reading for the iphone 5 Apple's lead is narrowing. Nokia is hanging in at the bottom segment of the market to. They just need to hang in their till they get the right product out

      Surely you me4an bottom segment of market too & hang on in there.

      Sheesh, & I though the Reg Hacks were bad at this stuff.

      1. FartingHippo
        Headmaster

        Re: @James 51, whilst we're doing pedantry

        You might want to reply to the right post before criticizing someone. Glass houses, stones, etc.

  7. CCCP
    Facepalm

    Some (looking at you Curve) are too low end

    My corp, like many others I suspect, go for the cheap as chips BBs for their hordes. This creates an image problem.

    Mine doesn't even do 3G ffs. Which means I can't use the Voda femto cell in my house. Which means the BB is useless as a phone in my network black spot home.

    And the "camera" is so bad you can't even snap e.g. white boards for posterity. Well, you can snap, but you won't be able to read it later.

    The browser, always a BB Achilles' heel, is made worse by the aforementioned lack of 3G.

    At least the email is a strength eh? Well no. The exchange synching screws up just when you need it.

    It is light though, so slightly less annoying to carry around.

    1. Mark Dowling

      Re: Some (looking at you Curve) are too low end

      "Mine doesn't even do 3G ffs." - that's what, a 4 year old 8310 or 8900 or something? Everything from 9000 on has done 3G.

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