Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) launched the newest BlackBerry "do everything" wireless phone this week to much fanfare. While some pundits has argued whether this was the reel first "iPhone killer" to come to market, most of the universe eagerly waited to test an actual unit and see if what the specifications looked like matched reality. Add to that the fanatical user base the BlackBerry has -- just as nutty as iPhone worshippers -- and it was a classic showdown. Would the new BlackBerry Storm hold its own against Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) offering?
Being released today on the second-largest wireless network in the U.S. -- Verizon Wireless -- the newest BlackBerry offering is the first without a real, tactile keyboard. However, the touchscreen does have actual, tactile feedback. In other words, it can be "pressed" instead of just hovered over or lightly tapped. After having scanned an in-depth review over at Engadget, there may be some major adjustment to this all-new way of inputting information into a phone, just like when Apple released the original iPhone and touchscreens were the new "it."
The gamble RIM takes here is if the real "tough" screen will get customers who require some kind of tactile feedback when using phones to become BlackBerry customers over the iPhone. From a phone standpoint, this is a good comparison. But when looking at the complete multimedia package of the iPhone from top to bottom, I'm unsure the Storm is even in the same league.
As a phone and email device, you bet -- the Storm is every bit as good as the iPhone on paper (feel free to disagree). Since Verizon told Apple to take a hike when the iPhone was originally offered to it, it's now 18 months later and the company finally has an answer. However, the question and answer may have already been asked and answered by AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T), who Apple chose to partner with when Verizon Wireless declined.
"If you can tolerate the volatility, it's a good idea to begin dipping back in to the stock market, in solid companies with strong cash balances, little debt and great prospects," says wireless sector expert Nikhil Hutheesing.
In The Forbes Wireless Stock Watch, the advisor asks, ""In the long run, smart investments today will lead to profits down the road. One of those companies, that I now think looks attractive, is the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry - Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM)."
"The Canadian company introduced the BlackBerry in 1999 and it quickly became a must-have way for employees oflarge companies to communicate through email and voice wirelessly. In its fiscal 2008 (which ended in February) the company sold nearly 14 million devices (more than double the year before).
"Recently, though, the financial crisis has dealt a strong blow to the company. Investors doubt whether RIMM can repeat the 90% growth in revenues that it achieved in fiscal 2008.
"Not only is the slowing economy a threat to growth but so is increased competition. Apple's iPhone, for example, has been a hit among consumers and now the company is pushing into the corporate market, trying to erode Research In Motion's market share.
Top slot remains firmly in the hands of Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE: NOK), but the current data may start to give the perennial champion some reason for concern. While its current lead in market share domination remains well above its next closest competitor, but the figures are much closer than what they were this time last year, another indication of just how popular the iPhone has become over the past year.
Last year at this time, Nokia had a very tight grip on the market, with a reported 51.4% control of the market. It's next closest competitor was Research in Motion, which had 10.6% market share.
With the stock prices of thousands of public companies taking a very large nosedive in recent weeks, it stands to reason that some companies with little debt and who're also flush with cash may be seeking to turn on their acquisition engines and snap something up. With Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) down almost 90 points from its 52-week high set just this summer, could the email addict support company be ripe for a buyout? Who would want to gain RIM's immense cellphone/email subscriber base that seems to keep outperforming larger competitors? Think Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).
The company just said that it is experiencing higher costs due to the launch of newer smartphones (like the Storm), and if you take that with the pounding the overall market has taken, RIMM could be left as a willing acquisition to the company that failed to snatch up Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) earlier this year. Microsoft's Windows Mobile is a venerable mobile operating system but does not have the core business email user base of the cachet of the Blackberry. At the $60 per share level, RIM would be a $34 billion takeover, which is still quite large for Microsoft to swallow. Is RIM worth it? You decide.
Microsoft would seem to have a more logical fit with an RIM acquisition (in its entirely) than by gobbling up Yahoo and having so much overlap in the process. If the future really is mobile (for computing, communications, etc.), Microsoft's potential acquisition of RIM would be years ahead of its time and possibly even a bargain if one were to look at the broadband and wireless landscape circa 2015. It's got the cash, and it's got the moxie. Whether it has the will to try another huge acquisition in 2008 is anyone's guess
The move comes as the company tries to make another big step in gaining market share in the consumer segment. For most of the BlackBerry's existence, the phone has been regarded as mainly a device for professionals, but RIMM has been trying to break that reputation, and is banking on the fact that its newest touch screen will help move the company in that direction.
All of the major mobile phone makers have been scrambling to keep up with the mania that Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) created last year when it released its iPhone, and then again this year when that mania spiked once more with the release of the upgraded iPhone 3G.
Forget finance -- it's a rough day to be a handset maker. Following a widely panned earnings report from Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM), Finnish firm Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) was slapped with price-target cuts from JP Morgan and ING. What's more, Dresdner Kleinwort warned that RIM's weak gross-margin guidance will most likely be echoed by Nokia.
Digging into the various reports, JP Morgan and ING both slashed their price target on Nokia from 11 euros to 10 euros per share. JP Morgan reiterated its "underweight" rating, and said it still thinks Nokia can increase its market share -- just not as much as the company might have hoped. The brokerage firm also sees replacement cycles growing by 6.5 months in 2009.
Meanwhile, Dresdner Kleinwort backed its 'hold" rating and its 15-euro target price, but warned that gross margins across the sector will remain under pressure through 2010.
The barrage of bearish brokerage notes -- along with RIM's disappointing turn in the earnings spotlight -- has NOK more than 4% lower at midday. Today's plunge likely came as a disappointment to enthusiastic option players; yesterday, traders on the International Securities Exchange (ISE) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) bought to open 25,322 calls on NOK, compared to just 346 puts.
Earnings reports continue to dribble in as the quarter winds down. Much of the attention this week will be on homebuilders KB Home (NYSE: KBH) and Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) as investors look for any sign that the housing sector has bottomed (home sales numbers are also due out this week; see below). Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial anticipate that both companies will report that they narrowed their losses in the most recent quarter.
KB Home's expected $1.25 per share loss, on revenue of $725.5 million, compares to the previous quarter loss of $3.30 and to a year-ago loss of $6.19. However, KB Home's losses in the past few quarters have been deeper than expected. The Los Angeles-based homebuilder's long-range earnings growth forecast is 10.5%, less than the S&P 500. Analysts continue to recommend holding KB Home, and have for at least 120 days. Shares, however, reached a new 52-week high of $31.69 on Friday, and they are up 10.5% year to date.
Lennar is expected to post a loss of 52 cents per share, on revenue of $1.1 billion. That compares to the previous quarter's per-share loss of 76 cents and to a year-ago loss of $3.25. While Lennar also has tended in the past few quarters to miss expectations, the Miami-based company managed a positive surprise in the first quarter of 2008. Lennar's long-range earnings growth forecast is 10.3%, about the same as KB Home's. Analysts also recommend holding Lennar. Friday, shares of Lennar also reached a 52-week high, $27.75, but they are down 6.4% year to date.
Minyanville contributor Sean Udall dares to share the kind of keen insight and actionable information you won't find in any prospectus. For more original thought, visit www.minyanville.com.
As Brian White noted earlier, Research in Motion (ASDAQ: RIMM) plans to enter the retail market this fall with a clamshell flip version of its BlackBerry Pearl smartphone.
The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 offers multimedia features such as a video and music player and a 2-megapixel camera. Like the original Pearl, the new flip model includes a Web browser and a SureType Qwerty keyboard. The new device weighs 3.6 ounces and measures about 3.9 inches by 1.9 inches by 0.7 inches. BlackBerry says the Pearl Flip offers voice activated dialing, conference calling, speed dialing, call forwarding and background noise cancellation.
"The popularity of BlackBerry smartphones has grown tremendously around the world and the introduction of this new flip phone will help extend the reach of the BlackBerry platform even further," Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research In Motion, said in a prepared statement. "The BlackBerry Pearl Flip is a full-featured smartphone."
BlackBerry's effort to expand beyond its business base to retail consumers puts the company in direct competition with Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone and industry stalwarts Motorola (NYSE: MOT), a pioneer of the flip phone, Samsung, which isn't publicly traded in the US, and Nokia (NYSE: NOK).
T-Mobile will be the exclusive stateside launch carrier of the new flip BlackBerry. Pricing details weren't released and will be available later.
Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) is finally deviating from the "candybar" wireless handset. Today, it introduced the first BlackBerry flip phone at the CTIA wireless trade show.
The new unit is called the BlackBerry Pearl Flip. RIM CEO Jim Balsille stated that 70% of handsets in the U.S. utilize the flip shape, which probably explains why RIM finally introduced one. It's easy to see -- there is no keypad to accidentally press and the nicer color displays are completely protected when the flip is closed on the phone. It took until late 2008 for RIM to realize this? Odd.
Aside from the outside color display, the new model is very similar to the existing BlackBerry Pearl model, with the same compressed keyboard and exclusive BlackBerry push-email that has made addicts out of email lovers everywhere.
The original Pearl, which debuted two years ago, was RIM's first foray into the consumer market, and this new model should sell like gangbusters to that same crowd. In retrospect, RIM's strategy was probably to release a consumer flip phone to re-energize interest in its BlackBerry line with so much competition arriving lately from the iPhone 3G and other smartphones that do email and provide business-like features in a cellphone form factor. The new BlackBerry Pearl Flip will be seen in T-Mobile USA stores sometime this fall.
In an exciting bit of news for early adopters north of the border, the new BlackBerry Bold smartphone from Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) is slated to hit Canadian shelves this Thursday, August 21. Because RIMM has signed service pacts with various wireless carriers in different regions, the Bold is being rolled out gradually around the globe. The snappy new device has already launched in Germany, but U.S. carrier AT&T (NYSE: T) is so far keeping mum about its plans for the Bold's Stateside debut.
The latest addition to the CrackBerry family is aimed toward business users; as proof, even Rupert Murdoch is getting in on the act. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network announced today that it's launched a new mobile application to provide immediate access to headlines in the WSJ family of financial publications (including Barron's, MarketWatch, and All Things Digital). The application is available for free on most BlackBerry smartphones.
Naturally, the Bold has already garnered comparisons to Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone -- but there are a few notable differences. While Jobs & Co. are slowly trying to make headway into the corporate world, their core audience is still top-heavy with tech-gadget completists and trust-fund hipsters. Meanwhile, BlackBerry's already in business with business, and the new WSJ app is just an extra boost of its Street cred.
"AAPL and RIMM are both pushing all of the other manufactures to the sidelines. It's clear that RIMM's BlackBerry is the dominating force in the corporate smartphone market, but the Apple iPhone has shaken things up quite a bit on the consumer side.
"The combination of the new Apple model flying off the shelves, and rumors of a postponement for one of RIMM's new releases, has raised questions among some analysts as to RIMM's ability to fight back.
"Research in Motion may be planning to release several new smartphones this year, including the KickStart, the Thunder and the already announced Bold.
Today was a volatile day in the markets as stocks started out flat to slightly positive early on, went negative, but then came back throughout the day. Traders had no real economic numbers, but oil trading under $115 and gold down another 3% has traders cheering beyond any lagging economic numbers.
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) rose sharply in today's final minutes. An analyst at Citigroup noted that the company could sell as many as 380,000 units of its Kindle e-book reader this year, which could in turn increase its Audible subscriptions and could raise its e-book sales. Shares were up over 9% at $87.86 in today's final minutes.
While those names could sound tempting for investors who may think they are cheap, BusinessWeek's Karyn McCormack reminds us that not everything that is cheap is a good bargain, and there are some risks that need to be taken into account.
One common problem for most of these stocks is that they trade under $10 for a reason. That reason is usually hardly any earnings growth, if any at all. And with a weak economy, these companies would have an even harder time to stimulate growth. Add to the mix the fact that institutional investors don't like to touch stocks under $10 and the potential for recovery is not good.
Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) launched the newest BlackBerry "do everything" wireless phone this week to much fanfare. While some pundits has argued whether this was the reel first "iPhone killer" to come to market, most of the universe eagerly waited to test an actual unit and see if what the specifications looked like matched reality. Add to that the fanatical user base the BlackBerry has -- just as nutty as iPhone worshippers -- and it was a classic showdown. Would the new BlackBerry Storm hold its own against Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) offering?
Some great news for 
With the stock prices of thousands of public companies taking a very large nosedive in recent weeks, it stands to reason that some companies with little debt and who're also flush with cash may be seeking to turn on their acquisition engines and snap something up. With 
Research in Motion Limited (USA)
Forget finance -- it's a rough day to be a handset maker. Following a 
Earnings reports continue to dribble in as the quarter winds down. Much of the attention this week will be on homebuilders 
In an exciting bit of news for early adopters north of the border, the new BlackBerry Bold smartphone from 
"
Today was a volatile day in the markets as stocks started out flat to slightly positive early on, went negative, but then came back throughout the day. Traders had no real economic numbers, but oil trading under $115 and gold down another 3% has traders cheering beyond any lagging economic numbers. 
The weak market conditions have caused many stock prices to fall under $10. Not only smaller -- and perhaps lesser known -- stocks trade under $10 these days, but also some big and famous names such as 
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