RIM BES to Manage Apple iOS and Android

BlackBerry In The Black, or Black Eye?

March 28, 2013 by bobegan Leave a Comment

Blackberry won’t be in the Black, but will its earnings give it a Black eye?
Of course it may well be me who will get a black eye here…

First let me say that I think that management has done a pretty good job at getting the company operationally under control, focused and accountable. The challenges in front of the company now, are all about market execution. In that regard, I think BlackBerry likely has more pain in front of it before it can realize any potential gains.

Some of the issues that BlackBerry face include:

1. A mainstream and industry media who frankly worry more about site traffic and ”clicks” than real, if not investigative reporting and facts. The recent fiction about BlackBerry’s status with the U.S. DoD and U.K approval authorities are two cases in points. The feeding frenzy on Apple lately, is another.

2. Blackberry worries too much about Apple and not enough about Samsung and Microsoft-Nokia. By 4/1, I get more inquiries from enterprise organizations about these two companies than Apple. The same is true when I’ve informally surveyed MDM/MAM/EMM solution suppliers. Part of this has to do with the already large adoption of iPhones and iPads in the enterprise. Support is assumed and widely in place via LDAP and ActiveSync and/or any number of MDM suppliers. BlackBerry needs to skate to where the puck is going. I thought all Canadians knew that.

3. The Z10 is a Gen1 device. The Q10 is still a fantasy. BlackBerry needs to accelerate its new product release cycles. And the company needs to innovate and deliver the highest levels of quality. No more crappy cameras; Longer battery life, not shorter; Best in class audio; Solid, high quality applications, not Android phantoms. Etc.

4. BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins needs to find himself a charismatic president to speak for the company. I’m sorry sir, but I’m in pain every time you try to be cool. It feels like watching a club singer in a SNL skit on a floating motel 6 that is masquerading as a cruise ship. Just be you.

Earnings will be released in a few hours. As I said, I think the company is likely to face more pain before things can, or might get better. We’ll see. My personal takes on what to expect…

z10 device sales around 700k
z10 ASPs ~550
Total revenues at 2.485B (just inside the projected range)
Expect service revenues to be down by 22% and software revenues to be down 10%
This would put EPS from ops into the -.75 cent range, below consensus.

Other things I will be listening for:

1. What plans does BB have to grow the software and licensing side of its business which traditionally has been only about 4% of its revenues.

2. What does BB intend to do make up for its expected drop in service revenues (~30% of biz), especially as it looks to retire BIS and it changes the way it accounts for active consumer and enterprise service subs. Keep in mind one no longer needs use/own/subscribe to a BES because the new BB10 devices support ActiveSync.

3. is the Q10 on track for release – when, where, what price?

4. Any other new devices? Tablet?

Thoughts?

A Christmas Poem: Blackberry’s Jam Isn’t So Sweet

December 23, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

Podcast: Download | Embed

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Every electronic gizmo was working, right down to my mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nick would leave more high-tech there.

My children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of new gadgets danced in their heads.
My wife in her Snuggie, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down, for a long winter’s nap.

When on the side table there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
I looked, and I saw my BlackBerry flashing and red,
And I knew that meant trouble, as I groaned, “Oh, no! It’s dead!”

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Was little consolation for my lifeless 9-9-3-0.
I tapped it. I shook it. I tried all to no avail.
But, deep down I knew, this was yet another RIM fail.

You see, my Bold became cold as coal three times before
Data wouldn’t provision, BBWorld wouldn’t work right.
Then, an odd defect appeared on the screen in plain sight.

Ever since I bought it, my BlackBerry was a mess.
My friends all chuckled, “Why didn’t you buy the 4S?”
Four times it had failed me, in just more than eight weeks.
For lack of quality, the 9930 in volumes it speaks.

More weary I became with each trek to the store;
The tales of reliability seemed nothing but old folklore
But each time it broke, I ended up playing RIM’s game.
Each time it broke, I called them by name.

“Now, Joshua, Jacob, Marshall and Mike,
You work at Verizon. You know what it’s like.
Sarah and Sally and Susie and Jan,
You’re at Customer Care. Do what you can!”

Their eyes – how they twinkled! Their dimples –how merry!
But all they could say was, “It’s that darn BlackBerry.”
What choice did I have? Maybe the fix was an app?
No, no, not at all. I had fallen into a Trap.

“We can send you another.” That would be number four.
“You can exit your contract.” For a fee, plus lots more.
“Maybe the Galaxy Nexus or another new device?”
No way that’s for me, when $699 is the price.

So, my 9330 is dead, and I’ve no options in sight.
I’m trapped. I’m upset. And it doesn’t seem right.

Blackberry’s Jam isn’t so sweet,
Its trouble will continue, beyond Wall Street.

RIM is in trouble, and it has to do better quick.
If it doesn’t, it may be in dire straits, with more than St. Nick.

I’ll end this rant now, so we can go back to good cheer,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, better mobile in the New Year!

Filed Under: Blackberry, Daily Insights and Observations, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: A Visit from St. Nicholas, Blackberry, christmas, New Year, Research In Motion, RIM, Wall Street

RIM To Manage Apple and Google Devices

November 30, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

RIM (re)announced its BlackBerry Mobile Fusion offering today. The intent of the solution is to simplify (unify) the management of smartphones and tablets running BlackBerry®, Google® Android® and Apple® iOS® operating systems.

While many enterprises are able benefiting from expense reductions because employees are bring their own devices to work (BYOD), these same companies face a myriad of issues (technical and expense) relating to the management and regulatory compliance. RIM’s solution should help that cause.

Enterprises that already own a BES server will find this new capability a very worthy upgrade. The jury is still out if this new offering from RIM will be enough to attract new enterprises to a RIM solution in the face of quick-moving, very capable upstarts like Mobile Iron, Apperian and security plays like Mocana. The new software is the result of RIM’s acquisition of the mobile device management company Ubitexx in May.

For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/mobilefusion

Is RIM Shooting Itself In the Foot With Mobile Fusion? (readwriteweb.com)
RIM Plays to Its Strengths With BlackBerry Mobile Fusion Management Package (pcworld.com)

Filed Under: Blackberry, Daily Insights and Observations Tagged With: Apple, Blackberry, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, ios, Mobile device management, Research In Motion, RIM, Ubitexx

I Bought A New Blackberry

October 14, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

For those who know me well, I usually carry 3 or 4 devices w/ me all the time. I’ve been doing it since the mid-90′s.
In fact, I’m quite sure my mobile phone device museum is second to none..

Over the last couple of weeks – especially the last few days – I was thinking about all the devices I’ve carried, on every North American network, as well as many in Europe and in the APAC.

During the last few days, I was more than just a little frustrated by yet another RIM network outage.

But when I think back across my 20+ years in this business about what devices have served me most reliably, what devices did I carry for years, not days or weeks, or what device line make me look less silly because of typos, it was Blackberry.

I dropped the last one I had a broke a few months back and hadn’t had time to replace it.

Tonight, as people stand in line – many of them out in the rain here in the east coast – to buy a new/old iPhone, I went out a bought a new BB Bold 9930.

I hope RIM doesn’t let me down..

Filed Under: Blackberry, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: Blackberry, Blackberry Bold, Breaking Bad, Downtime, iphone, Mobile phone, Research In Motion, RIM

How RIM’s Network Outage Affects Mobile App Design?

October 12, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

RIM just can’t seem to win – and they won’t if they keep punching themselves in the face.

The results of what started as a core switch failure inside RIM’s European network continues to cascade to other regions, including North America. A significant message backlog was created in Europe because of the outage and the time it took to get it operating again. RIM seems to have a handle on the root cause, but the company didn’t make it clear why the backup system also failed. Nor perhaps is that important in the heat of this firestorm.

RIM said they had not throttled traffic in other regions (contrary to some press reports). RIM did emphasize that there are a lot of messages to Europe from Asia and the Americas that seemed to be a causing the slowdown. While it’s clear the message backup is the most identifiable issue, it was unclear (Egan: I wasn’t convinced) if there are secondary failures. That said, RIM seems pretty confident that the outage is not the result of a security breach or from a software hack.

What’s seems curious is how the network fabric is constructed in a way that a message backup in one region is clogging up browser and in-region message delivery in another.

Surely organizations need to wrestle with the service level affects because of the outage itself, but I think there is also something instructional for the long terms to be gleamed here.

RIM’s network failure should be a reminder to organizations that during application design, building in offline capability is crucial. While HTML5 can help mitigate many of the costs due to OS fragmentation or closed- control ecosystems, it should be augmented with other client/server hybrid techniques.

Filed Under: Application Design, Blackberry, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: Asia, Blackberry, Failover, Research In Motion, RIM, security

What Can RIM Improve Blackberry?

September 15, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

I think this is a very fair and accurate editorial on Blackberry products. Its actually a pleasure to see someone write about Blackberry without an axe to grind and just sort out the facts. Good work Chris Ziegler.

Amplify’d from thisismynext.com

Editorial: How RIM can improve BlackBerry right now

Sort out Gmail and IMAP. Seriously. Email is your core competency, so act like it.

Don’t require BIS / BES for connectivity.

Iron out app management.

Get rid of the centered “working” icons and messages.

Don’t put the Bold on a pedestal.

Read more at thisismynext.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1cvp0

Filed Under: Blackberry, Daily Insights and Observations, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: Blackberry, editorial, how rim, improve, seriously

If You Were RIM’s CEO, What Would You Do?

July 5, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

http://watch.bnn.ca/headline/july-2011-/headline-july-5-2011/#clip495654

My appearance on Canada’s BBN talking about how to fix RIM.

As many of you may also noticed, I’m thrilled to announce I have join forces with MGI Research.
More on that, in a post later this week.

Is RIM Done? (sepharimgroup.com)

Filed Under: Blackberry, Insights and Observations, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: android, Blackberry, Canada, Chief executive officer, Jim Balsillie, Mike Lazaridis, Research In Motion

Is RIM Done?

May 23, 2011 by bobegan 1 Comment

This time we’ve asked ourselves: Is RIM Done?

Analysts are of two distinct minds on Research in Motion (RIM) – one is that RIM is done, another – that current problems are temporary and that RIM stock is a screaming buy. RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM, MGI Index= 2,396) shares continue to be under pressure, while Apple, (NASDAQ:AAPL, MGI Index =8,327), continues to gain market share in what used to be RIM’s core marketplace – the enterprise. Apple’s iPhone has become the new “CrackBerry” and apps have become the new currency of the mobile computing world.

Research in Motion, Ltd. (RIM) recent financial guidance put the lingering questions about its strategy and execution into sharp focus. RIM (MGI Index= 2,396) shares lost over 28% since April 28th 2011. Some industry observers feel that the tsunami of Apple (MGI Index=8,327) and Android offerings has irrevocably washed RIM away from its comfortable market position. Others see the current RIM challenges as a temporary hiccup for an otherwise great company in a great market. For one thing, we do not believe that with over $2Bil in cash, no debt and a consistent profitability, RIM is going out of business any time soon. The question is one of relevance and leadership. Can RIM retain a meaningful leadership position in the new mobile computing landscape and generate above market growth and profitability? Can it defend its position in the consumer markets and successfully penetrate the tablet space? Or will it roll back to being a niche provider of mobile access solutions for secure enterprise-class e-mail? Does the company have a realistic vision of the overall mobile computing opportunity? How long will the recovery process take? Do the RIM board and current management team have the right combination of skills to translate the vision into action? In this research note we examine RIM survival and recovery scenarios and share our outlook of why RIM’s recovery is likely to take a while.

This insightful 13 page MGI Research report - Is RIM Done? analyzes RIM stock scenarios by going deep into RIM’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The report examines RIM’s operating and R&D efficiency relative to its peers and explores RIM’s strategic options. The report was written by the MGI Research analyst team in collaboration with the leading mobile computing expert and industry analyst Bob Egan of the Sepharim Group, LLC. We believe this report is a must read for investors, analysts, portfolio managers, industry executives, and others involved with Mobile Computing investments.
Available immediately to MGI Research subscribers at the MGI Research website, a single copy can be purchased from the MGI Research Store or via Bloomberg.

Filed Under: Blackberry, Insights and Observations, Research In Motion, RIM Tagged With: Apple, Blackberry, BlackBerry PlayBook, iphone, Mobile Computing, Mouse Genome Informatics, PlayBook, Research In Motion

New Blackberry Bold 9900 Looks Strong

May 3, 2011 by bobegan Leave a Comment

Research In Motion made several announcements at Blackberry World today, one is a new device, the Blackberry Bold 9900. I’m impressed based on what I see.

The device looks fast. The new browser appears to render quite fast.
Frankly, I think the Bold 9900 looks really nice too.
Blackberry loyalist will flock to this device – the question is, will RIM be able to create some conversions – especially from the Android constituency.

We see fewer enterprises making outright device purchases this year. Increasingly we see organizations providing a purchase allocation (in the range of $100) to employee’s. Thus, we believe attracting individuals to buy Blackberries instead of Android’s (or iPhones) is going to be of growing importance to RIM.

Here is a video from engadget .com, shot during a hands on demo of the new Blackberry Bold 9900.