Eric50 Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 This is where I don't understand Fairfax and Prem who praised RIM's management in the Gurufocus interview. Amazon has shown yesterday what a competent tablet maker could do. RIM's tablet has been a joke since the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 This is where I don't understand Fairfax and Prem who praised RIM's management in the Gurufocus interview. Amazon has shown yesterday what a competent tablet maker could do. RIM's tablet has been a joke since the beginning. If you compare Amazon's tablet with the Playbook there are several differences, camera's, mic, etc. The Fire is being sold at a loss to gain marketshare. While I'll be the first to say the Playbook execution was lacking a person has to at least compare apples to apples when comparing the two. Prim noted that management has made mistakes but his bet is that if two people can take a company for $0 to 20 billion they have the knowledge and know how to pull through the mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric50 Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 Hope is not an investing strategy. History is full of tech companies that did not survive. Atari had very popular games when I was a teenager. I haven't heard from them for a very long time... RIM has several fundamental problems: 1. 5 years ago when Apple launched its first iphone, everybody could see where the future of the smartphones was. It took RIM (and Nokia...) more than 3 years to realize that... 2. They have an execution problem: 5 years after the first iphone, they haven't been able to produce something that is as good as the iphone.... And the RIM tablet was a disaster... 3. Even if they fix the execution issue now, they have lost all momentum. They are swimming against the tide with two strong competitors in the smart phones market (apple, google) and in the table market (apple, amzn). There might be room for a third place, but Microsoft has more promising products and much deeper pockets... I'm not sure the fact that management was good ten years ago will help them fix their issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 Hope is not an investing strategy. History is full of tech companies that did not survive. Atari had very popular games when I was a teenager. I haven't heard from them for a very long time... RIM has several fundamental problems: 1. 5 years ago when Apple launched its first iphone, everybody could see where the future of the smartphones was. It took RIM (and Nokia...) more than 3 years to realize that... 2. They have an execution problem: 5 years after the first iphone, they haven't been able to produce something that is as good as the iphone.... And the RIM tablet was a disaster... 3. Even if they fix the execution issue now, they have lost all momentum. They are swimming against the tide with two strong competitors in the smart phones market (apple, google) and in the table market (apple, amzn). There might be room for a third place, but Microsoft has more promising products and much deeper pockets... I'm not sure the fact that management was good ten years ago will help them fix their issues. Agreed. And not only have they not been able to produce something as good as the iPhone; they've haven't really been able to produce anything as good as the first iPhone. I mean look at just the touch screens on the Blackberry Storm and Storm 2. You push the entire screen every time you make a selection. It's taken them a long time to try to catch up. QNX is taking them forever to roll out, which is really hurting their brand. People don't want to wait another year for them to improve their incredibly outdated BB operating system. The other main problem app selection for BB is still very small and developers are not at all motivated to develop for BB. It's looking more and more likely that BB will end up becoming just another Android hardware developer, which will crush their margins. Having their own OS and allowing Android apps can be an option, but that poses different issues (apps are updated to conform to Android, which means BB will have to continually update their OS to ensure Android apps still run correctly and are updated correctly (I think Amazon is going to have this same issue). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCG Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Good article in today's WSJ about the issues at RIM: SB10001424052970204422404576597061591715344 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munger Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 From Think Equity analyst. Seems balanced. Any thoughts from the bulls/bears on this board? We estimate RIMM earns ~ $4.00 annually from its recurring monthly service fees, spread over 70M Blackberry users. While IT managers struggle to support iPhones, iPads, and Androids with secure, efficient, and reliable messaging services, RIMM is struggling with its own handsets. As a follow-on to our 6/17/11 piece, again we ask RIMM, "Why not open the NOC?" Which means supporting iPhones, iPads, and Androids with an open Blackberry service Platform. We believe this could stabilize if not return its services business to growth. Without that, we view the RIMM's subscriber franchise as a declining asset. • Value of RIMM's subscriber franchise. We have long argued the value of RIMM's franchise lies in their installed base of BES servers at virtually all of the F1000 global enterprises, which along with their NOC (Network Operating Center), provides secure, efficient, and reliable messaging services. • We estimate ~90M subs paying $4.67 per / month in service fees will generate ~ $5.1B in sales and $4.00 of our FY13E EPS estimate of $4.80 on $18.4B, with the remaining $0.80 and $13.2B from handsets and tablets. • We believe RIMM's recent decline is due to their inability to transform this platform toward richer (and thus a priority for carriers) media types such as video. Meanwhile, the industry has begun providing video optimization in the form of deep packet inspection combined with adaptive traffic management. • IT managers moving away from Blackberry to support Bring Your Own Technology "BYOT." With IT managers hustling to support messaging on iOS and Android, we argue RIMM has the perfect solution with its existing footprint. Specifically, we argue RIMM should embark on a strategy change to open its architecture to support iPhones and Androids; if they do not, the industry will. • Will they do it? We were encouraged by RIMM's purchase of Ubitexx this past May as a step toward an "open architecture" as Ubitexx offers IT managers the ability to manage any smartphone on its network. We think RIMM should go further and expand its "openness" to their BES/NOC architecture. As close observers of RIMM, we have not as of yet witnessed any moves in the direction of opening the NOC. The Bull case on RIMM: • August marks a "bottom" in RIMM's EPS. • RIMM's near-term issues are caused by a product transition in which carriers and consumers are waiting for RIMM's Bold refresh in the summer and thus resulting in a pause in revenue and earnings. RIMM's efficient handsets architecture enables lower cost/higher performance margins. • RIMM's stock should find support from just its services business which earns about $4.00/year and would be taken out by another player wishing to establish a smart phone presence in the enterprise. • Playbook in its infancy -- RIMM's support for Flash as well as the more powerful QNX OS will win support from enterprise and consumers alike. • Smart phone and tablet market growing too fast to ignore RIMM at current levels. The Bear case on RIMM: • RIMM's enterprise franchise will be challenged from "BYOT" - Bring-your own technology - to work programs in which the iPhone/iPad and Android solutions displace RIMM's enterprise customer. • This will result in declining Blackberry subscriber adds for RIMM's service business and declining share, ASP and margins for RIMM's hardware business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 While I'll be the first to say the Playbook execution was lacking a person has to at least compare apples to apples when comparing the two. I think that's why Amazon will do better than other tablet makers. Because they are NOT going after the iPad. They are offering something with fewer features, but much cheaper and still with a great selection of content. Most other tablet makers are going after the iPad, and they fail the comparison every time. Why would you buy a playbook or TouchPad (at full price) when you can get an iPad for about the same price or a little bit more? Apple has content to sell hardware and Amazon has hardware to sell content, and so they can attack this market from different angles and be differentiated enough to both do well. But if you are trying to compete with Apple yet have worse hardware and worse content than they do, why would anyone buy your stuff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 From Think Equity analyst. Seems balanced. Any thoughts from the bulls/bears on this board? We estimate RIMM earns ~ $4.00 annually from its recurring monthly service fees, spread over 70M Blackberry users. While IT managers struggle to support iPhones, iPads, and Androids with secure, efficient, and reliable messaging services, RIMM is struggling with its own handsets. As a follow-on to our 6/17/11 piece, again we ask RIMM, "Why not open the NOC?" Which means supporting iPhones, iPads, and Androids with an open Blackberry service Platform. We believe this could stabilize if not return its services business to growth. Without that, we view the RIMM's subscriber franchise as a declining asset. • Value of RIMM's subscriber franchise. We have long argued the value of RIMM's franchise lies in their installed base of BES servers at virtually all of the F1000 global enterprises, which along with their NOC (Network Operating Center), provides secure, efficient, and reliable messaging services. • We estimate ~90M subs paying $4.67 per / month in service fees will generate ~ $5.1B in sales and $4.00 of our FY13E EPS estimate of $4.80 on $18.4B, with the remaining $0.80 and $13.2B from handsets and tablets. • We believe RIMM's recent decline is due to their inability to transform this platform toward richer (and thus a priority for carriers) media types such as video. Meanwhile, the industry has begun providing video optimization in the form of deep packet inspection combined with adaptive traffic management. • IT managers moving away from Blackberry to support Bring Your Own Technology "BYOT." With IT managers hustling to support messaging on iOS and Android, we argue RIMM has the perfect solution with its existing footprint. Specifically, we argue RIMM should embark on a strategy change to open its architecture to support iPhones and Androids; if they do not, the industry will. • Will they do it? We were encouraged by RIMM's purchase of Ubitexx this past May as a step toward an "open architecture" as Ubitexx offers IT managers the ability to manage any smartphone on its network. We think RIMM should go further and expand its "openness" to their BES/NOC architecture. As close observers of RIMM, we have not as of yet witnessed any moves in the direction of opening the NOC. The Bull case on RIMM: • August marks a "bottom" in RIMM's EPS. • RIMM's near-term issues are caused by a product transition in which carriers and consumers are waiting for RIMM's Bold refresh in the summer and thus resulting in a pause in revenue and earnings. RIMM's efficient handsets architecture enables lower cost/higher performance margins. • RIMM's stock should find support from just its services business which earns about $4.00/year and would be taken out by another player wishing to establish a smart phone presence in the enterprise. • Playbook in its infancy -- RIMM's support for Flash as well as the more powerful QNX OS will win support from enterprise and consumers alike. • Smart phone and tablet market growing too fast to ignore RIMM at current levels. The Bear case on RIMM: • RIMM's enterprise franchise will be challenged from "BYOT" - Bring-your own technology - to work programs in which the iPhone/iPad and Android solutions displace RIMM's enterprise customer. • This will result in declining Blackberry subscriber adds for RIMM's service business and declining share, ASP and margins for RIMM's hardware business. RIM has already announced they will be supporting Iphones etc opn the enterprise server. http://crackberry.com/press-release-rim-announces-multi-platform-blackberry-enterprise-solution-smartphones-and-tablets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingArrow Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 haha I'm a bull. But that is friggin hilarious! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyingArrow Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 oh no!!!!!!! not "anonymous sources" again. given amazon undercut them by $300 for the same hardware, it's only rational. the real news here is RIMM management doing something "rational". You crack me up... There is almost nothing the same about the hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 oh no!!!!!!! not "anonymous sources" again. given amazon undercut them by $300 for the same hardware, it's only rational. the real news here is RIMM management doing something "rational". You crack me up... There is almost nothing the same about the hardware. http://bios.weddingbee.com/pics/68853/dont_feed_the_trolls.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerbaron Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 As you might have heard from my man MG over at TechCrunch, Amazon's definitely got a Kindle tablet in the works, and supposedly looks a lot like RIM's failing (failed?) PlayBook. Well, there's a resemblance alright, and it's not just aesthetic. Here's how it went down. My sources tell me that RIM originally outsourced much of the hardware design and production of the PlayBook to mega-ODM Quanta -- a company that builds, and sometimes helps design, hardware for name brands. The time eventually came that Amazon's executives decided to do an Android tablet -- far likelier to respond to the dark-horse success of the Nook Color (AKA "NOOKcolor") than to the adjacent success of the iPad -- Amazon's own Kindle group (called Lab 126) apparently opted not to take on the project, in favor of continuing to work solely on next-gen E-Ink-based devices. From there, Amazon's team determined they could build a tablet without the help and experience of Lab 126, so they turned to Quanta, which helped them "shortcut" the development process by using the PlayBook as their hardware template. Of course, it's never quite that simple, and as I'm told Amazon ran into trouble, and eventually sacrifices were made (like using a slower processor). That is total bullshit, there is no way one could do a tablet with the same hardware at 40% of the cost. Components are fixed costs and design variants cannot bring you to a 60% discount to your competitor. Anybody that says otherwise has no business experience in sourcing and electronic supply. Peter, you are a clever guy, and I know you hate RIM, but you should put the articles above in the "unicorn land". BeerBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myth465 Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 As far as I can tell peter_burke_ceo has been on point.... Also the hardware may not be the same, but most users probably wont care and will love the price point. Sure some people will complain about the lack of a phone data plan but they will just spend an extra $300 to get an Ipad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Rim (and Nokia) sell more smartphones in India than Apple http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/apple-cedes-surging-india-smartphone-market-to-nokia-rim-tech.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerbaron Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Rim (and Nokia) sell more smartphones in India than Apple http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/apple-cedes-surging-india-smartphone-market-to-nokia-rim-tech.html Are they getting the same subscriber fees from emerging market then developed ones? BeerBaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Rim (and Nokia) sell more smartphones in India than Apple http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/apple-cedes-surging-india-smartphone-market-to-nokia-rim-tech.html Are they getting the same subscriber fees from emerging market then developed ones? BeerBaron They are getting the same fees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nnejad Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 I know some people here have questioned the RIMM or Abitibi investment on this board.. but as soon as you look at just India, you see how amazing both of these investments will be. It's a different world there, and without a doubt, Prem's close ties with the country have played a large part in building the margin of safety. There's over one billion people in India. Newspapers cost about one to four cents per copy; newspaper ad rates are increasing double digits, and pagination is at a max. Meanwhile, if you want data, you should look forward to buying it by the day or three days, with strict data caps. The cost is pretty high relative to your income, and you don't get a lot of service. So, Apple iPhone's are data intensive; BB's minimize it extremely. RIMM has a huge advantage in these developing countries, and so long as it can get its act together in three to five years, it can utilize that dominance to transfer into more "iPhone"-like products. If that's even what they want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Rim (and Nokia) sell more smartphones in India than Apple http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/apple-cedes-surging-india-smartphone-market-to-nokia-rim-tech.html Are they getting the same subscriber fees from emerging market then developed ones? BeerBaron They are getting the same fees nonsense. they are selling basis text plans in the third world. your contention is that folks in Java Indonesia pay the same subscription rates as a somebody in Toronto? Are they charging for BIS? Yes. Doesn't matter how much the actual fee is, as that would vary from market to market. The important thing is they are getting recurring revenue off it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CONeal Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Rim (and Nokia) sell more smartphones in India than Apple http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/apple-cedes-surging-india-smartphone-market-to-nokia-rim-tech.html Are they getting the same subscriber fees from emerging market then developed ones? BeerBaron They are getting the same fees nonsense. they are selling basis text plans in the third world. your contention is that folks in Java Indonesia pay the same subscription rates as a somebody in Toronto? Are they charging for BIS? Yes. Doesn't matter how much the actual fee is, as that would vary from market to market. The important thing is they are getting recurring revenue off it. most of the people in emerging markets buy prepaid plans and phones. many just use the phone for it's keyboard and just text with it. they can't afford full blown data plans, let alone a BIS plan that is even more expensive. the model is nothing like how you buy a phone postpaid in Canada and USA. This is why rimm doesn't get the same sub revenue overseas as it does in NA. I honestly don't understand where your coming from on this. India has prepaid, postpaid, and rental phones. The rental and post paid phones have BIS attached to it. Note: I said they were charging for BIS. The revenue set up maybe different but the important thing is they are getting the recurring revenue. A $10 fee in the US does not equal a $10 fee in India. The markets are different and they adjust accordingly but they are not giving the services away for free. In alot of emerging countries people use their phone as a computer also, as it's the only viable option in some cases for access to the Internet. I feel that what I have said was honest. It's up to beer baron if he feels like I mislead him. While there maybe alot of people that use a BlqckBerry for texts there are still alot that can afford data plans and use them. particularly in the larger cities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 So, its a brilliant idea if AMAZON sells units for zero (or takes a huge loss)just so that they could MAYBE sell other services - mostly to the 300M people market in a huge recessionary/depression market yet RIM will sell and get PAID for the hardware AND the services to over a Billion person population region that is growing at multiples, - multiples that North America would be happy to have just a sliver of right now. Ok - got it - makes sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest valueInv Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 So, its a brilliant idea if AMAZON sells units for zero (or takes a huge loss)just so that they could MAYBE sell other services - mostly to the 300M people market in a huge recessionary/depression market yet RIM will sell and get PAID for the hardware AND the services to over a Billion person population region that is growing at multiples, - multiples that North America would be happy to have just a sliver of right now. Ok - got it - makes sense to me. There is no "maybe". Amazon has designed the device so that it will be very difficult for consumers to not buy content. They are not foolish. They have analyzed data from millions of customers and priced accordingly. This is nothing new for them. They've been using it with the old kindle for a while. Their margins are thin but they are selling a lot of devices and content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 How about post the company Press Release supporting your ridiculous rhetoric that they are getting out of the tablet business? Dont bother - cause there is none - similar to all the other bs you put here -like The CEOs would be gone by the summer etc etc. you have a weird fettish for shittin in other peoples threads with complete bs but whatever. Thats the last pc of fingertip skin i will waste on you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 their CEOS will be gone within a year. If not, will you be then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Kind of a funny thing though - gum flapping about insider buys Rimm has no recent Buys or sells AAPL on the other hand - only sells http://www.insidercow.com/history/company.jsp?ORDER=desc&SORTBY=transaction_date&company=AAPL&totalRowsShow=500 What would that tell you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smazz Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 their CEOS will be gone within a year. If not, will you be then? of course not. tormenting you is is fun, not to mention, easy. that is actually funny - you can dream though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now