Friday 17 June 2011

RIM TO ANNOUNCE LAYOFFS, STOCK TAKING A BEATING!

Was there a need for Blackberry to make a Tablet?  Lets be honest here, the BlackBerry Playbook is a competent device, to avoid an argument from the ‘fanboi’s’ I’m going to say there are things the Playbook can do that the iPad 2 can’t and vice versa.  So let’s compare Apples to Apples and Oranges to Oranges.  Up against the Xoom and the Honeycomb O.S the Playbook doesn’t really have anything extra to offer.  I won’t even mention Apps, both the Xoom and the iPad 2 were out before the Playbook so it couldn’t even boast being first in the market which in turn would have boosted its sales.  What should we expect next, a Blackberry Mp3 player or a Blackberry T.V?  Research In Motion wants to believe their customers have bought into their culture the same way Apple users have but we know that simply isn’t the case. It takes more then just BBM to have a culture, just ask Google, they know the market is fickle and you’re only as good as the perception of your last product…

     Which is why RIM is announcing layoffs, of course when your CEO’s vision fails to meet even basic expectations, it’s the working man (and woman) who faces the consequences.  As of this writing RIM shares are taking a beating, ($28.13), it’s probably time for those who know how to trade to buy shares or to start making a move on their positions, but at what point does and how long can a company like Google or Apple stay away from buying out RIM not just for its mobile users but for its corporate enterprise software and for the highly touted QNX O.S that we keep hearing about?  I don’t want to say it is the beginning of the end for RIM because realistically iMessage was that beginning and this is the most likely the ‘middle of the end.’ 
  
     Not all of RIM’s issues are due to its tablet, in fact, its more likely due to the acceptance that they will not meet their revenues from the previous year and that going forward stiff competition from Google and Apple (Galaxy Tab 10.1, iPhone 5 etc.) will only further degrade revenue streams for RIM, whether or not layoffs and any potential restructuring will save shareholder value will be the concern going forward.  What RIM should have learned from Samsung is that it’s okay to copy and get sued, as ‘plagiarism is the sincerest form of imitation’ especially when the product you can copy is an outright success.  So why bother creating something that is untested and unproven in a smaller form factor when those before you have failed to obtain any significant market share (see other 7” tablets) and when the winning formula is there for you to copy.  Oh, I know many of you won’t like that argument, but I say welcome to the real world, where you can’t reinvent the wheel and when you try to innovate something that someone else created 3 months ago and it takes you a year to get it to market and then they release a better version of it before you, this happens.  Funny how real life works.


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