∞ Analyst says RIM has 'no clue' and is 'inept'

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Respected financial analyst Charlie Wolf on Wednesday issued a note to clients and slammed RIM for its recent missteps.

[ad#Google Adsense 300x250 in story]“RIM’s skills as a hardware manufacturer have been more than offset by it ineptness in software development, the focus of competition today,” wrote Wolf. “The blame must be laid at the feet of the company’s Co-CEO’s who in their actions and words, appear to have no clue on how to mount a successful response.”

Wolf also said that RIM spent the last 10 years as “a one-trick pony, delivering the gold standard in messaging services,” according to Barrons.

While Wolf said he wasn’t predicting the demise of RIM, he did cut his estimate from $26.8 billion in revenue and $7.35 in earnings per share, to $23.1 billion and $6.

Just last week RIM warned that it would not meet its guidance for the first fiscal quarter of 2012. The company blamed lower shipments of BlackBerrys for the shortfall.



  • http://www.hammyhavoc.com Hammy Havoc

    For once, an analyst is correct.

  • Wilmox

    Anybody for a Rim job?

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    I wonder which tech sites RIM is primarily targeting their astroturfers at.

    • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

      Certainly not this one!

      But if Jim starts coincidently writing glowingly about RIM and tells us about his new ’59 Les Paul we can be pretty sure there is skullduggery afoot. After all, everyone has his price.

      • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

        I know I do.

        [Mike Lazaridis: Call me?]

        • silencets

          He wouldn’t be able to afford you with the profit forecast cut….

          • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

            Shh! He doesn’t know that!

        • silencets

          He wouldn’t be able to afford you with the profit forecast cut….

  • Anonymous

    I think they should ditch 2 incompetent CEO’s and go for one incompetent CEO to save money. I doubt at this point if they could find a good CEO who would like the challenge of turning this possible train wreck around.

    Just two cents worth.

    • silencets

      Or they could continue to release outdated products and schedule press interviews which have to be cut short when interviewers ask pertinent questions about RIM’s direction.

      They should also start praying for a space/time violation which would return to the year 2005. That way they might have been able to eliminate Apple before the iPhone released. They will also need to build the T-1000 to eliminate Steve Jobs.

      • Anonymous

        LOLWDC (LOL while drinking coffee) Very well said.

      • Anonymous

        LOLWDC (LOL while drinking coffee) Very well said.

  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney
    Analyst says RIM has ‘no clue’ and is ‘inept’

    I’m not trying to diminish anything Mr. Wolf was saying, he’s right in my opinion and since I don’t know him, I won’t doubt his analystic prowess, but the irony of the title is exquisite.

  • Anonymous

    RIM has lost it’s Proactive decision making because they became complacent as the market leader. The reactionary decision making isn’t helping them. They need to stop trying to copy and come up with their own style again.

  • Jth9234

    Lack of respect for RIM. Still among the leaders in the smartphone market and depending on how you look at it, perhaps the most profitable smartphone maker out there in that one business model. User base of over 50 million Blackberry smartphones, a new Playbook tablet that can get a nice big niche being the benchmark in 7” tablets. New OS coming to BB phones this year and possibly the QNX OS next year.

    I would say RIM is being highly underrated. So it has excellent revenue and profits every quarter yet its trading at 7x PE ratio? It may lose market share in percentage, but since the smartphone market is an ever expanding one, even if sustains or just drops market share slightly it will still sell even more BB’s since the market is expanding. 30 billion market cap is also not chopped liver.

    Also despite the “business” reputation and being niche. Never been true. Its true businessmen use them for their instant email, great notifications, email/messaging features, and security features. But with the hype of touch screen only phones, most people I know that want a real physical keyboard on their phones, still buy Blackberry phones. Teenage girls that have less money and love to text, I often see sporting BB’s.

    RIM is alive and well…