Hasta La Gadget!

RIM is taking a beating in market share for the smartphone industry as its fortunes have taken a drastic turn for the worse in the last several years. RIMs BlackBerry smartphones went from being some of the preferred smartphones to being largely ignored by both business users and your average consumer in the face of more popular and better performing competition from Apple and Android. RIM is looking to its coming OS BlackBerry 10 to save it.

RIM is putting many of its eggs into the BlackBerry 10 basket. The company is behind schedule on the new operating system and has reportedly instructed employees to work a six-day week and not take any holidays until the operating system comes to market. BlackBerry 10 was originally set to release in Q3 2012, but delays forced the company to push that until 2013.

RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins has stated that RIM workers are working around-the-clock to get BlackBerry 10 to market. Many believe BlackBerry 10 is RIMs last chance to turn itself around. If the operating system fails, RIM may find itself and truly dire straits.

‘The successful launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform, and the delivery of high quality, full-featured BlackBerry 10 smartphones, remains the company’s No. 1 priority; and we’re incredibly proud of the commitment shown by all RIM employees as we work toward this goal,’ a RIM spokesperson told the Canadian news wire.

[via KnowyourMobile]

RIM says no holidays and forces a six-day workweek in BlackBerry 10 push is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Research In Motion is reportedly limiting summer vacations and ordering six-day work weeks for many of its employees in its Ottawa headquarters. According to the daily newspaper Ottawa Citizen, RIM allegedly confirmed that it is curtailing vacations due to its plan to push out its highly anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system sooner than expected. “The successful launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform, and the delivery of high quality, full-featured BlackBerry 10 smartphones, remains the company’s No. 1 priority, and we’re incredibly proud of the commitment shown by all RIM employees as we work toward this goal,” a RIM spokeswoman told the publication.

Earlier this week, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins spoke to CBC’s Metro Morning radio show and said that the company isn’t in a death spiral. The CEO was also quoted saying, “There’s nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now.” Also this week, RIM senior executives held a press conference to assure its customers that the company isn’t done yet. As you know, RIM previously said that its BlackBerry 10 phones will be coming in fall, but unexpected problems have forced the company to delay the launch until 2013.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: BlackBerry PlayBook 4G seem ready for a release, RIM to cut carrier fees?,

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is sort of like the captain of the Titanic, except the Titanic was popular and people were sad when it sank. But unlike Captain Edward Smith, Heins is either crazy or a liar. Or both. More »

RIM’s financial struggles to make it through until BlackBerry 10 hits the market early next year are set to increase, with carriers pressuring the Canadian company to slim its monthly server fees. Operators like AT&T and Verizon have each demanded a reduction in the fees RIM charges for subscribers to access BlackBerry servers, Bloomberg reports, something the company is understandably reluctant to do as they account for more than a third of annual revenue.

RIM confirmed the ongoing negotiations in its financial results last week, though the company would not comment on any specific details from its talks with carriers. “RIM intends to continue generating a revenue stream from the services we offer” is all spokesperson Nick Manning would say, while neither AT&T nor Verizon would comment.

Still, that the potential for those fees to be shaved away is a threat to RIM is unmistakable. While the carrier has seen drooping demand for its handsets – leading to a $518m quarterly loss most recently – the revenue from fees actually rose 4.1-percent year-on-year. Fees currently contribute 36-percent of RIM’s total revenue, but analysts predict they will drop to $2.7bn in the 2014 fiscal year, and $2.3bn the year following.

CEO Thorsten Heins insists RIM is not in a “death spiral”, citing rising subscriber numbers and the company’s $2bn+ in cash reserves. ‘The facts about RIM’s business provide reason to believe that we can succeed,” he wrote, “even as we take painful but necessary steps to focus our resources and build a lean, nimble organization focused intently on bringing BlackBerry 10 to market.”

However, while the first BlackBerry 10 devices were previously expected to reach store shelves before 2012 is out, RIM admitted that it had underestimated the issues in rebuilding the QNX-based platform for smartphones. Instead, the first phones will arrive early next year, with both all-touch and QWERTY models in the pipeline.

[via Electronista]

RIM cash reserves threatened by carrier fee cut demands is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Image via CrackBerry

RIM has done something admirable today. In an extremely coordinated effort, RIM senior execs confronted the Canadian media to tell their side of the BlackBerry story and gain control over the message that was being depicted by observers. RIM CEO and President Thorsten Heins even wrote his own editorial on the current company’s status. Crackberry had the opportunity to sit down with new Executive VP of Global Sales and Regional Marketing, Rick Costanzo, and the interview wasvery interesting.

(more…)

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