Reuters:
Next-generation software for BlackBerry’s smartphones is “ready to compete”, Research In Motion’s new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, told more than 2,000 technical developers on Tuesday, expressing confidence in RIM’s long-term future.
I hate to tell you this, but that train left five years ago.
Alex Knight:
I have spoken friends of mine who have been long-time Blackberry fans, and they aren’t holding their breath for any miraculous event where the company will suddenly bounce back.
This is a key point. Not even RIM’s loyal followers believe there is a chance in hell the company can recover from its embarrassing missteps over the last few years. Even at its worst times, Apple’s core customers believed in the company.
Yeah, that was ambitious. I got nothing, sorry.
Reuters: Research In Motion, still smarting over having to change the name of its yet-to-come operating system, faces a similar trademark challenge to its popular instant-messaging service BlackBerry Messenger. Because things are going so well for RIM, they just needed … Continued
BGR:
In what is something of a serious allegation, our source told us that Mike Lazaridis was lying when he said the company’s new lineup was delayed for that reason. ”RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet,” we were told.
Of course RIM has denied what BGR’s source said. But then again, I don’t believe much of what RIM says these days.
They also said the PlayBook would deliver an amazing tablet experience. Amazingly bad.
Apparently RIM organized a party in Sydney, Australia where BlackBerry users could share songs with their friends. Judging from the turnout, I guess they were too embarrassed to show up.
Matt Hartley:
After much consideration, he concluded that his company’s only hope was to abandon its long-held strategy, to acknowledge its shortcomings and embark on a radical new strategy. He ditched the company’s sputtering software business. He put teams to work developing new devices and he cut a billion-dollar software deal with one of the most powerful technology companies on the planet.
Unfortunately for the shareholders of Research In Motion Ltd., the Canadian smartphone executive’s name was not Jim Balsillie or Mike Lazaridis. It was Stephen Elop, the Hamilton-born chief executive of Finnish mobile giant Nokia Corp.
I don’t think RIM can do it. They need to fire the co-CEOs and bring in someone with some imagination to clean house and get the company back on track.
Tom Krazit for paidContent.org: As they tried once again Thursday evening to urge financial analysts to look ahead to a brighter future while once again delaying the release of a crucial product, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis failed to give … Continued
The numbers are in and they don’t look good. According to the company, they shipped 14.1 million BlackBerrys and 150,000 PlayBooks. Keep in mind, those are shipped numbers, not sold.
Elizabeth Woyke for Forbes: This was particularly true of BlackBerry users. More than half (53%) of survey respondents who identified themselves as BlackBerry users said they would like an iPad if they were to buy a tablet. A much smaller … Continued
Research In Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets, has been prevented from using “BBX” to describe its next-generation BlackBerry operating system. The word comes from a press release posted by BASIS International, a business software developer which … Continued
Indonesian police named Research In Motion’s country director a suspect for negligence Monday after a BlackBerry promotion turned chaotic and left dozens injured and others knocked unconscious.
Andrew Cobham, president director for Research in Motion (RIM) in Indonesia, and British security consultant Terry Burkey were named as two of four suspects in the incident at a Jakarta mall and could face five years’ imprisonment.
Just when you think things can’t possibly get worse for RIM.
RIM’s newest BlackBerry phone created a riot in Indonesia when it went on sale.
WSJ: Verizon Wireless customers may have to wait more than three weeks for the device, according to the carrier’s website. That compares with as much as 21 days at AT&T and up to 14 days at Sprint Nextel. While some … Continued
BGR:
Sales of Research In Motion’s new BlackBerry 7 smartphones have slowed in recent weeks as competition from Apple’s iPhone 4S and Android phones heats up. In a note to investors on Friday, Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley noted that RIM’s new smartphones are not faring well ahead of the holidays. “Our recent checks indicate slowing sell-through trends for the new BlackBerry 7 smartphones the past couple weeks,” the analyst wrote. “Further, with the launch of the iPhone 4S, increasingly price competitive Android smartphones, improving Windows smartphones, and the launch of the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, we anticipate increasing competition across all tiers of RIM’s products in C2012.”
Maybe if they gave away BlackBerrys at McDonald’s drive-thru.
The Guardian: RIM lost 1.8m subscribers in the US in the three months to September despite its new BlackBerry 7 phones going on sale in the final month, according to new data from comScore’s MobiLens survey of smartphone users. That’s … Continued
Purdue University has continued to see a decline in BlackBerry devices using its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) since Jan. 1, 2011, and, after Dec. 31, 2012, will no longer support Exchange synchronization with BlackBerry devices.
The combination of a 33-percent decrease in BES use, a subsequent increase in per-unit cost and a proliferation of the use of non-BlackBerry devices influenced the decision.
Everyone with bejeweled jeans will definitely have one of these.
Josh Lowensohn for CNET:
The metric follows an extended outage of Research In Motion’s e-mail and BlackBerry messaging services, which left users unable to communicate with one another or send and receive e-mails globally. To placate angry users, RIM offered users $100 in free “premium” applications. The spike also coincided with the release of Apple’s new iPhone 4S.
And the bad news just keeps coming for RIM.
BGR.com: It specifically focuses on “RIM’s failure to take action to either directly compensate BlackBerry users or to indirectly compensate BlackBerry users by arranging for wireless service providers to refunds their customers and to take full responsibility for these damages.” … Continued
I was reading an article this morning by industry analyst Ross Rubin about how RIM needs something with the impact of Apple’s voice assistant technology, Siri. Of course, Ross is correct, RIM definitely needs a big win like Siri. However, … Continued
According to The National, accidents fell 20% in Dubai and 40% in Abu Dhabi. Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim from the Dubai Police department said his force saw the largest decrease among young drivers and men. If BlackBerry users had … Continued
Macworld: At a service update conference held on Thursday afternoon, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said, “We don’t know why the switch failed and why service never failed over to another alternative switch.” Asked why the company couldn’t avoid network traffic … Continued
At least PlayBook users aren’t affected.
Reuters: Millions of BlackBerry users around the world were left without text communication services for a third day on Wednesday as Research in Motion struggled to fix what it said was a switching failure in its private network. The text … Continued
BBC: A few hours after Blackberry maker RIM said all services were “operating normally” users have complained of a new crash. Twitter is full of angry users reporting renewed issues with their handsets and an inability to send messages and … Continued
Balsillie on the iPhone in February 2007 from BusinessInsider: “It’s kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers … But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I … Continued
Electronista: BlackBerry owners on Friday were dealt more unfortunate news Friday after many reported losing access to Internet services. Both BlackBerry Messenger and e-mail faced outages, primarily in Canada and Latin American countries. RIM was “investigating” as of Friday afternoon but didn’t have a … Continued
Note: This is a guest post by Matt Richman. You can learn more about Matt on his Web site. RIM just reported earnings (PDF) for its second fiscal quarter of 2012. Seventy-three percent of its $4.2 billion in revenue came … Continued
The numbers are in and they don’t look good for RIM. The company reported shipping approximately 10.6 million BlackBerry smartphones and approximately 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Keep in mind, those numbers are shipped, not sold. By using the shipped number, … Continued