I have to admit that I was caught off guard by this. Apparently RIM lost less money in their most recent quarter:
Waterloo-based RIM reported a $100 million (U.S.) increase in liquid assets in the quarter ended Sept. 1 to $2.3 billion, crediting reduced inventory and improved collection of receivables. It said it generated $432 million in cash flow in the period.
“RIM continues to be a financially strong company,” said chief executive Thorsten Heins, who has pursued a cost cutting program that includes 5,000 layoffs or about a third of RIM’s staff and consolidation of manufacturing facilities.
“Despite the significant changes we are implementing across the organization, our results demonstrate that RIM is progressing on its financial and operational commitments during this major transition.”
RIM posted revenue of $2.9 billion, up 2 per cent from the prior quarter but down 31 per cent from $4.17 billion a year ago. It reported a net loss including restructuring costs of $235 million or 45 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected revenue of about $2.5 billion and 47 cents per share in red ink.
Excluding one-time costs, RIM reported an adjusted loss of $142 million or 27 cents per share, compared with a $518 million, or 99 cents per share loss, in the prior quarter.
RIM earned a profit of $329 million or 63 cents in the year ago quarter, when its share of the U.S. smartphone market was about 12 per cent compared to 4.8 per cent currently, according to IDC estimates.
Well. I guess it’s good to suck less. There’s more:
BlackBerry shipments of 7.4 million were below the 7.8 million in the preceding period but ahead of forecast, with PlayBook tablet shipments at 130,000. Analysts predicted 6.9 million smartphone and 217,000 tablet shipments. U.S. sales were 22 per cent of consolidated revenue compared to about 25 per cent in the first quarter.
The company said its carrier partners have reduced unsold BlackBerry inventory, adding that it has realized $350 million in savings so far from the streamlining program announced in March and is about half way through its head count reduction. The company also said it had negotiated a new $500 million credit facility
Again, this points to sucking less. Though I will point out that the number of Playbooks that RIM sold in a quarter, is slightly more than the number of iPads that Apple sells in a day.
Does this mean that RIM is turning a corner? No. We will wait for Blackberry 10 to see if they’re out of the woods…. Assuming it ships on time.
Rent To Own Laptops May Be Watching Your Every Move: FTC
Posted in Commentary with tags FTC, Privacy on September 29, 2012 by itnerdAre you someone that has decided to rent to own a laptop? If so, according to Wired, you might be one of 420,000 users in the USA who have spyware installed on those laptops that is watching everything you’re doing:
The software, known as Detective Mode, didn’t just secretly turn on webcams. It “can log the keystrokes of the computer user, take screen shots of the computer user’s activities on the computer, and photograph anyone within view of the computer’s webcam. Detective Mode secretly gathers this information and transmits it to DesignerWare, who then transmits it to the rent-to-own store from which the computer was rented, unbeknownst to the individual using the computer,” according to the complaint.
Apparently the software took pictures of children, individuals not fully clothed, and couples engaged in sexual activities. How delightful. The FTC found out about this and decided to do something about it. But:
Claudia Bourne Farrell, an FTC spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview the agency does not have jurisdiction when it comes to criminal offenses. She said the agency, when it believes criminal conduct may have occurred, will forward that to the appropriate agencies. But the agency, she said, has a policy against disclosing when it has done so.
“We don’t have criminal authority. We only have civil,” she said.
The companies were not fined, she said, because “we don’t have the authority to impose civil fines for the first violation of the FTC Act.”
Thus the deal that they came up with goes like this. The software stays but they can’t use it to spy on people and they have to warn users the software is there. It should be noted that the software can also be used to disable computers and track their locations. So it’s not like this software is all bad. But it’s clearly bad enough.
Clearly, the FTC doesn’t have the balls to really smack these idiots around. Thus one hopes that criminal charges are used in this case as I can’t see how the FTC settlement would act as any sort of deterrent.
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