RIM announces Q1 earnings and delays BlackBerry 10 to Q1 2013
When I think of bad luck in the technology industry, my mind goes straight to RIM. In the past few years, the company has struggled to produce worthy competitors to the iPhones, Android phones, and Windows Phones of today. Because of that failure to keep up, the company itself has started to fail. RIM’s Q1 earnings were a good indication of that.
For starters, the Waterloo-based BlackBerry maker announced that its revenue was only $2.8 billion, which is down 33% from the previous quarter. Net loss was $518 million – a number far worse than was anticipated by industry analysts. These poor numbers are affecting RIM drastically: the company also announced that it will be cutting another 5,000 jobs.
And on top of all that, the company’s next operating system, BlackBerry 10, has been delayed again – this time until Q1 2013. RIM says that producing the operating system has “proven to be more time consuming than anticipated.”
When I read about this earnings report, I figured that it’s just more bad news that will eventually lead to the downfall of RIM. Yes, the company has a nice market in enterprise and yes, they’re still selling phones. But more delays for an operating system that absolutely needs to be released are not good things – and with more and more businesses letting their employees bring their own devices so they can actually be productive, this is the absolute worst time for RIM to make any mistakes.
I really hope that RIM can exceed everyone’s expectations, but I’m starting to think that it’s just waiting for a buyer. What are your thoughts?
[MarketWatch via Engadget]
