Posts for Ticker ‘Blackberry’

A Different Take on R-I-M ‘Warning’ (RIMM)

rim-logo1Somehow, some way, Wall Street was surprised that Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) reported worse-than-expected earnings.  Based on all the corporate layoffs, this should have been expected.  Where this gets interesting its that its activations grew.
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Posted on: February 11, 2009 – 9:26 am in Earnings Warning, Technology Companies, Telecom, Wireless, , , , ,

Blackberry Outages (RIMM)

Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is reporting a critical outage for its Blackberry users this afternoon.  Some outages in the past have affected some users, while others were system-wide.  This outage is system-wide for enterprise clients (large companies, government agencies, and the like) and for all network users in the Americas.

RIMM shares closed up over 5% at $94.47 today, although shares are down almost 1.5% at $93.17 in after-hours trading.

It sure looks like Steve Jobs just got a new opportunity to talk about the benefits of the iPhone, although we would caution that outages in the past have not created any major customer exodus in the past.  This may give that recent survey in favor of the iPhone one more leg up.

Jon C. Ogg
February 11, 2008

Posted on: February 11, 2008 – 4:56 pm in Wireless, , ,

Put A Facebook On Your BlackBerry (RIMM, GOOG, MSFT)

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) has launched Facebook® for BlackBerry® Smartphones.  This announcement came out of CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2007.  This will allow BlackBerry software applications that enable fast, streamlined and optimized mobile access to the popular Facebook social utility using a BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry system architecture and Facebook Platform for Facebook users.

T-Mobile USA has been selected to be the first carrier to provide the new software application to its customers.

Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research In Motion, will join Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, to formally unveil and demonstrate the Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones application today at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show in San Francisco. This application will be available for download today.

Facebook users can wirelessly send and view messages, photos, pokes and Wall posts. The rich, native application goes beyond browser-based access, automatically pushing notifications to the user’s BlackBerry smartphone as friends and colleagues send notes, Wall posts or pokes. The application allows users to take a photo, upload it to the site with captions and tags; quickly and easily invite friends; manage events; manage photo albums; and manage their status while on the go.

This does have some business applications depending upon your business, but it may just end up being another time hog.  The take from 24/7 Wall St. on this is that the announcement will be a harbinger for many more similar announcements regarding other social networking sites with phone makers and with carriers.  This trend has already started as social networking has already started going mobile (MySpace-Helio and others).  Free weekly email sign-ups can be accessed here. 

Now the question comes down to whether this and other deals make a rumored and long-speculated investment from Google or Microsoft come with a higher price tag.

Jon C. Ogg
October 24, 2007

Jon Ogg is the editor of the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers. 

Posted on: October 24, 2007 – 12:00 pm in Internet, , , ,

Can Research in Motion Earnings Match Stock Gains? (RIMM)

Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) is set to report earnings today after the stock market closes, and First Call estimates are $0.50 EPS and $1.36 Billion in revenues.  Keep in mind that the consensus estimate moved up from $0.49 over the last week and from $0.48 over the last month or two.  Estimates of new subscribers are somewhere in the 1.35 to 1.45 million range (forecast was 1.32-1.37M) and shipments of more than 3 million units.

We just noted this one as one of the huge Window Dressing Stocks that was a large beneficiary of fund buying.  Based upon a $98.00 mid-morning price, since the June 29 date shares are up 47%; but if you go merely one day before the end of the last calendar quarter shares are up a monster 77%.

It is never easy standing against the crowd and it is never easy saying hi-flyers have run too much.  It is possible to stand against the crowd, but stocks have shown time after time how sometimes they will keep rising despite performance and despite valuations.  But it is hard to imagine that there isn’t going to be some profit taking.  RBC Capital Markets just downgraded this Monday saying R-I-M was hard to see higher prices for the time being.  The average target is roughly $100 now, although there are higher targets.   Jim Cramer said recently that he expects some profit taking in these names that are up big, mostly from his "New Four Horsemen of Tech" stocks.

The BlackBerry is still more business-focused, but what we are rally trying to look at is how large the global total is that the company can take.  It has leaped over the Palm Treo from Palm Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) and the iPhone, for now at least, has been less of a business focus and is still in the the very early stages of its 20 million unit target where R-I-M is trying to counter the advance.

We would expect some profit taking as the obvious move, but we aren’t going to try stand in front of a freight train.  This one has just had way too many gap-ups on earnings before.   With new versions of its PDA smartphones having hit the market, we aren’t going to try to outguess the guestimates for shipments and subscribers.  We are still trying to factor in a longer-term estimate of the total global market opportunity for R-I-M and we aren’t alone. 

The $55 Billion market cap sounds giant, but it depends upon how you view its global opportunity in the years ahead.  Another wild card today will be the impact that the weak US Dollar had.  Research in Motion is based in Canada, derives much of its sales in the U.S., and now has global sales with most major global wireless carriers.

Jon C. Ogg
October 4, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers. 

Posted on: October 4, 2007 – 10:21 am in Consumer Electronics, Earnings, Wireless, , , , , , , , , ,

Palm Doesn’t Want To Be Slapped, Not Too Hard Anyway (PALM, RIMM, APPL)

Palm Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) has fallen out of favor from many long-term investors, even if it has recovered off of lows.  But after reviewing the numbers this is much better than it could been:

  • Palm posted $0.08 EPS & roughly $361 million in revenues, both slightly above the estimate of $0.08 EPS & $359+ million revenues.  It also sold 689,000 units, a gain of over 20% and in-line with estimates.  But the guidance is what is acting as a load on the shares: next quarter guidance is $0.06 to $0.08 EPS versus roughly $0.10 estimates; revenues are now expected $370 to $380 million, under the $400+ million expectation. 

Shares closed down 1.6% at $16.00 today, and that is in the middle of the $13.41 to $19.50 52-week trading range.  Its recent $100.00 Centro smart(er) phone is likely going to carry less profit per unit, but now the company is going for more volume in the lower-end phone sales were none of the smart phones participate.  This new focus is a market where Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) has somewhat stayed out of, although sometimes certain contract signings and promotions allow competition there.  The new iPhone from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been a threat as well.

The investment and recapitalization is all but finalized with Elevation Partners and it seems the market is somewhat waiting to see how the company performs after that.  Shares are down 4% at $15.35 after-hours trading, but this is actually a pretty good reaction when you consider its position compared to BlackBerry and iPhone now.  The news might not sound great, but it may be deemed as at least a partial win because it could have been far worse.  Now the company will just have to prove it can get this back to its prominence over a long-term horizon.

Jon C. Ogg
October 1, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: October 1, 2007 – 3:33 pm in Consumer Electronics, Earnings, Wireless, , , , , , , ,

Cisco Clarifies Its Palm Relationship (CSCO, PALM, RIMM)

In corporate America there are many developments and deployments that never make it public because they are minor events to the company that day.  But sometimes even a slight change in technology use or adoption in one company can have ripple effects that play out against another company or an entire sector over time.  Last week we ran a piece titled “Palm’s True Loss: Cisco as a Client” that discussed Cisco Systems’ (NASDAQ:CSCO) changing from Palm Treo smartphone devices.  The good news for Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) is that Cisco Systems is not dumping the Palm Treo smartphone, or at least not entirely. 

What is happening is that as part of the mobile workforce plan, Cisco is offering a variety of smartphone devices to choose from.  This is after a one and a half to two year upgrade after first noticing Cisco’s mobile workforce in summer of 2005 with Palm Treos attached.  Cisco users in this latest upgrade cycle were offered a choice of the Nokia E61i (not the regular Nokia E61 as stated in prior article), Motorola’s Q phone, Samsung’s BlackJack and i600, RIM Blackberry and the Treo 650.   

So the Palm Treo is not completely out of the picture.  Research-in-Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) is in there after all, and that makes sense considering the deployments that have worked on a cross-over basis with both companies and the related networks for some time.  Discussions with contacts inside Cisco did not indicate that Blackberry was a choice initially.  A communication from Molly Ford, one of Cisco’s PR managers, did indicate that Cisco IT continues to talk to a widerange of handset manufacturers about their future roadmaps and test devices foraddition to the internal certified range of devices, including Apple, HP, HTC,Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and RIM.   

Molly Ford also indicated that Palm worked very hard over the last couple of years to provide Cisco IT with support for its fleet and that Cisco would have no problem in picking a Palm device in the future.  So it appears the good news is that Palm is not being canned entirely.  But the choices in smartphones have increased. 

While it is not public what percentage of employees are changing devices, personal contacts have noted that it isn’t just a few here and there.  If this was the brand of a ballpoint pen or which personal ISP was being used, it wouldn’t even be a discussion. These smartphone devices are such a topic of conversation among business people and random airport travelers that any new device introductions can matter.  If this was Acme Router Co. making this change it would not be an issue.  But this is Cisco, and the company indirectly influences many technology decisions and directions outside of its own efforts.  This can create some added ripples that otherwise would not have come up.

Neither of the above points would be noted if it wasn’t for seeing this directly and hearing about it so frequently from personal and professional contacts.  Wall Street and all of its minions have become techies whether they like it or not, and this carries over into almost every field with mobile sales and support staff.  Almost on every business (or pleasure) trip from New York to Chicago to California it seems the latest smartphones are a topic of conversation.   I won’t bore you with other such examples and references that have been shared by my contact base, but that’s more than just conjecture.

Jon C. Ogg
September 11, 2007

Jon Ogg produces the 24/7 Wall St. SPECIAL SITUATION INVESTING NEWSLETTER; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 11, 2007 – 2:46 pm in Consumer Electronics, Internet, Telecom, Wireless, , , , , , ,

Palm Squashes Foleo… Will Its “One Focus” Affect The Microsoft Pact? (PALM, MSFT, RIMM, APPL)

Tonight I received an email from Palm (NASDAQ:PALM) regarding what was starting to look like the inevitable: that little web gadget, its Foleo, is not just delayed futher; it has been scrubbed.

This was an open source notebook with an ‘instant-on’ feature that was not really a full notebook.  But the company was hoping on a device that might replace your notebook if you are just going on a short vacation or quick business trip and didn’t need full access outside of basic web use and emails.  The answer is, wish in one hand and…. you know the rest.  Palm has been falling further behind as Research-in-Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) has been winning more PDA-phone market share and as the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone has garnered so much press.

Frankly, there is still a gadget market out there.  The problem is that the gadget market is seeming as though it is BECOMING your phone or PDA.  The demand just appears to not be there as much for devices that work through your PDA phone like this now dead Foleo device.  The company is going to focus exclusively on the next generation software platform for delivering its next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market. 

Interestingly enough, this may indirectly affect Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) down the road; but that depends on how you interpret what the company says and if you think this goes farther than it is leading on.  Palm’s release said it will continue to deliver products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, but from an internal platform development perspective, it will focus on only one.  So there is room for interpretation based on that, depending on if you believe the company (read the full release below).

There are some other strange things going on inside Palm, which we will be posting Wednesday.

Jon C. Ogg
September 4, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

BELOW IS THE FULL EMAIL ON PAGE 2…..

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Posted on: September 4, 2007 – 6:42 pm in PC Companies, Software, Wireless, , , , , ,

Is AT&T Cutting Blackberry Features?

Late word from The Inquirer is that AT&T (T) may cut the GPS function from the new RIMM (RIMM) Blackberry so that it will not steal from Apple (AAPL) iPhone sales.

AAPL’s iPhone is supposed to be the driver of AT&T’s efforts to get new wireless customers. The wireless company’s fears are that the new Blackberry 8820 will have both GPS and WiFi functions at a price well below the iPhone.

AT&T almost certainly makes more money from the $500 iPhone and its high-priced call plans that its does from the RIMM Blackberry.

RIMM’s shares are up over 160% over the last year, outpacing the AAPL rise of about 80%.

If the news about AT&T blocking the new Blackberry function are true, RIMM’s magnificent rise could be coming to an end.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: August 20, 2007 – 4:54 am in Wireless, , , , , ,