June 29, 2012, 3:14 PM — I've been writing in this blog about the rapid demise of Research in Motion for almost two years now -- here, here, and here are but a few examples -- and the truth is I've run out of words to describe this ongoing tale of tech tragedy.
So I'm crowd-sourcing my reaction to RIM's atrocious fiscal 2013 first-quarter earnings, in which the Canadian BlackBerry maker reported a loss of $518 million, a 43% decline in revenue from the year-ago quarter, and -- this one is the killer, yet it was so, so predictable -- a delay in the launch of the vaunted, company-saving BlackBerry 10 until early next year. Because I give up.
Comments from Wall Street Journal readers:
RIMM is the corporate equivalent of the undead. Would someone find some semblance of decency and put a stop to its teetering with a well-aimed sliver stake?
If they lost a half.billion this past quarter and they have $2 billion in cash, they have no more than 4 quarters at the current burn. The delay in their next product will cause all hopeful fence-sitters to jump off the fence into RIM's competitors' back yards. That will suppress revenues further.
I’ve been short for quite some time – this is why. Likely to get worse from here. No prospective buyers, old technology from the pager era.
From Globe and Mail readers:
A sad, sad story. It's really too bad for the Waterloo region, and for Canada in general.
I am so disappointed and angry right now. The only thing RIM had to do was launch the Phone on TIME. I have little confidence now and this pains me as I am one of the biggest supporters.
RIM's only escape is monetize their back bone and enter the cloud service market, be it virtualization, storage, or whatever.
If RIM gets bought by a respectable tech firm, like Microsoft, chances are those folks see the value of what they are getting. Ultimately, being sold is a good thing for RIM.
And finally, from that repository of infinite, 140-characters-or-less wisdom:
"Somebody has to save RIM. I can cope with losing anything, but not my Blackberry." -- Piers Morgan
"RIM have 2 options. 1.
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