Hasta La Gadget!

RIM hasn’t had much good news to offer along with its glum fiscal first quarter, but it has given a reason to mark early 2013 on the calendar if you’re a BlackBerry fan. CEO Thorsten Heins revealed during the results call that the first QWERTY BlackBerry 10 phone will arrive in “close proximity” to its touchscreen-only counterpart. What that entails is still very much under wraps, although there were clues. Heins stressed that the early batch would focus on the “premium” space, while BlackBerry 7 would hold down the entry and mid-range markets until their BlackBerry 10 replacements were ready. The tidbits won’t provide much comfort to someone who has to decide on a phone by the holidays, but they hint that the truly patient could be rewarded for their calm under pressure.

RIM: QWERTY BlackBerry 10 phone launches in ‘close proximity’ to its all-touch cousin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The last quarter has been about as rough as they come for RIM, and it’s now detailed just how things stacked up in terms of hard numbers. For the first quarter of its 2013 fiscal year, the company brought in $2.8 billion in revenue, down a full 33 percent from the prior quarter, while it reported a net loss of $518 million — much worse than analysts were expecting. What’s more, it’s also announced that it’s cutting an additional 5,000 jobs as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts, and that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones now won’t launch until sometime in the first quarter of the 2013 calendar year (that includes a QWERTY model launched in “close proximity” to the touchscreen-only device). As for why, RIM only went as far as to say that the integration of some key BlackBerry 10 features and the “associated large volume of code” has “proven to be more time consuming than anticipated.” For his part, though, CEO Thorsten Heins says he remains “confident that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones will provide a ground-breaking next generation smartphone user experience,” and that he’s “encouraged by the traction that the BlackBerry 10 platform is gaining with application developers and content partners.” He further notes that the response to BB10 from key carrier partners has “been very positive.”

In terms of its existing devices, RIM reports that BlackBerry smartphone shipments (not sales) for the quarter totaled 7.8 million, while there were about 260,000 PlayBooks shipped — on the company’s earnings call, Heins noted that the total BlackBerry subscriber base now stands at 78 million. Not surprisingly, the company is warning of more bad news to come. It says it expects the “next several quarters to continue to be very challenging,” with everything from the “increasing competitive environment,” lower handset volumes, impact from the BlackBerry 10 delay, and the company’s plans to “continue to aggressively drive sales of BlackBerry 7 handheld devices” expected to cut into its bottom line. In another bit of news, the company also announced that it has appointed Steve Zipperstein, Verizon’s former General Counsel, as its new Chief Legal Officer. You can find the full earnings report at the source link below.

RIM announces Q1 earnings: $518 million net loss, 5,000 job cuts, BB10 not due until Q1 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was scarcely a day ago that we got a first peek at what could be the first BlackBerry 10 devices — and now we’re looking at what may be BlackBerry 10’s cornerstone app, a reworked BlackBerry Messenger. As long as N4BB‘s details prove legitimate, the centerpiece of the app will be its theming: owners can customize the chat bubbles and backdrops to fit their finicky ways. Of course, this being an efficiency-obsessed RIM, the theming should also be integral to keeping power consumption to a minimum: the darker the colors, the less energy a BBM conversation demands from a future BlackBerry’s big OLED screen. We don’t know whether any changes will prove more than skin deep, although the switch to the QNX-based OS might prove enough at first. We’ll know everything soon enough should of a September release for the first phone be more than just a feverish dream.

BlackBerry Messenger for BlackBerry 10 gets a possible first sighting, themes to fit that chatty lifestyle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To say that RIM has a lot riding on their new BlackBerry 10 platform is a hell of an understatement, but to date the company has generally kept quiet on what consumers can expect from their first BlackBerry 10 devices.

As anticipation builds for a launch slated for later this year, N4BB has gotten their hands on an internal slide that reveals a few new details about RIM’s first BlackBerry 10 phones.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins confirmed at this year’s BlackBerry World event that the first BlackBerry 10 device to hit the market would be a touchscreen-only model, and RIM has been getting developers ready for it by doling out thousands of their Dev Alpha devices.

While company representatives were quick to note that the Dev Alpha was nothing close to the touchscreen device they would eventually ship, the slide notes that the L-series BlackBerry (previously known as the London) would sport an OLED display running at the same 1280×768 resolution as the alpha hardware. That display manages to cram 356 pixels into every inch, which also confirms that the L-series device will have a 4.2-inch display panel.

The slide also offers up a few details about what RIM has planned for their forthcoming keyboard-toting N-series model, perhaps most notably that the phone’s OLED display will run at 720 x 720 with a pixel density of 330 ppi. Crunching the numbers points to a screen that’s just a shade under 3.1 inches diagonal, making it the largest display to go on a more traditionally designed BlackBerry (the touch-friendly Torch series had larger 3.7-inch displays).

Just when these first devices will begin to trickle out of Waterloo is still a carefully-guarded secret, but sources have told N4BB in the past that an August announcement for the first BlackBerry 10 device would be followed by an October release.

Interestingly, the leak comes hot on the heels of rumors that RIM was pondering the outright sale of their handset business, something that doesn’t seem terribly outlandish considering CEO Heins’ past statements on corporate strategy. That said, The Globe and Mail reported earlier today that sources close to RIM have denounced the rumors as short-sighted and untrue.

RIM is considering splitting up its ailing BlackBerry business and selling off the handset manufacturing side, sources have claimed, with both Amazon and Facebook tipped as potential suitors. Details of the possible cleavage are scant, with UK newspaper The Sunday Times citing no sources in its report; RIM is supposedly weighing whether its messaging division would perform better as a standalone business.

That would leave the handset division either operating on its own, independent of the software and services teams, or – if RIM could find a buyer – spinning it off altogether. As for the messaging half, that too could be sold off if it made good business sense, with the paper mentioning Apple and Google as third-parties which might be interested.

Finally, another possibility is avoiding splits altogether and selling off the business entirely to a larger company, with Microsoft cited as a possibility. The Windows maker has made headlines recently with its push into tablet hardware in the shape of Microsoft Surface, though it’s generally believed that Nokia would make a more reasonable acquisition target given it has already adopted Windows Phone.

RIM confirmed last month that it had engaged JP Morgan and RBC Capital to examine possible options for the future, with significant job losses already on the cards. Whether it could muster sufficient interest among rivals to persuade them to open their wallets remains to be seen.

[via Reuters; Image credit: miggslives]

RIM weighing smartphone split-off: Amazon and Facebook suggested suitors is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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