RIM released their Q2 earnings report yesterday [Warning: PDF] and I’ll sum it up this way. RIM has managed to fail to meet any of their expectations. Not one of them. The net result is that RIM shares were punished to the tune of a 20% drop on Friday. The thing is, I don’t think that RIM gets it. Here’s a quote from the press release that illustrates that:
“We successfully launched a range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones around the world during the latter part of the second quarter and we are seeing strong sell-through and customer interest for these new products. Overall unit shipments in the quarter were slightly below our forecast due to lower than expected demand for older models,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “We will continue to build on the success of the BlackBerry 7 launch to drive the business as we focus our development efforts on delivering the next generation, QNX-based mobile platform next year.”
Um, hello? Earth to Balsillie? Do you not see the handwriting on the wall? You shipped 200,000 Playbooks this quarter. Apple in Q3 2011 sold 9.25 million iPads. Apple is handing your butts to you in the tablet market and you’re getting owned in the smart phone market by both Apple and Google. Do you think you have a future based on that? I don’t and neither do those who watch your stock. Face it, you’ve missed the boat RIM. Unless there’s a major change in that company, the end is near and it won’t matter that QNX-based phones (A.K.A. Blackberry OS 7) are coming soon.