“The rollout of Apple Inc.’s 3G iPhone was seen as a direct shot at the dominance of Research In Motion Ltd. in the smart-phone market. Now at least one analyst is saying the BlackBerry’s already taking some hits,” Rex Crum reports for MarketWatch.
“Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf cut his rating Wednesday on RIM’s stock to underperform — the equivalent of sell — from his previous rating of hold, saying that the company’s strength in the consumer market ‘is bound to come under siege because of the iPhone,'” Crum reports. “Wolf also lowered his 2008 earnings estimate for RIM to $3.70 a share from $4.05, and cut his 2009 outlook to a profit of $4.80 a share from $6.25.”
“Wolf said the introduction of the 3G iPhone means that “the days of no competition are over,'” Crum reports.
“Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha had some of the same thoughts on RIM when he initiated his coverage of the company with an underperform rating. Garcha, who issued his rating before the new iPhone was released, wrote in a research note that RIM’s earnings are likely to slow down due to losing some market share in North America, along with pressures on its gross margins over the next 12 months,” Crum reports.
“The Needham analyst said that RIM is attempting to fight back. The company launched its BlackBerry Bold in the spring and is said to be releasing a new BlackBerry Thunder model in late summer. But he added that those efforts might be a little too late, as the system software in the iPhone ‘makes the device one of a kind,'” Crum reports. “‘Research In Motion has no hope of catching up on the software front, which promises to be the next battleground in the smart phone market,’ according to Wolf.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “bc” for the heads up.]
Read a review of the Thunder.
It may have been a prototype-but they noted the screen scratches very easily.
Just what you want in a touch phone.
PS.
RIM+Thunder=some kind of fart joke hidden in there somewhere.
Shortin’ RIMM tomorrow. 1000 shares.
Gonna enjoy the black diamond ride.
“Now feel the wrath of this FULLY OPERATIONAL battle station”
-Emperor Palpatine
“Research In Motion has no hope of catching up on the software front, which promises to be the next battleground in the smart phone market”
this is the key point (and so obvious). the impact of this is not to be underestimated.
i love some of the comments on this board. some of you should quit your day jobs and become comedians!
It’s not just the phone, its the complete package. No other phone has anything like the app store.
I’d love to see any of the wunderkins on here actually have to support, manage and budget for mobility on a global scale. Everything just reeks of fanboy favortism but hey we are reading macdailynews.com
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Apple has ZERO footprint in large enterprise and totally LACK any management of the Iphone so until then I don’t see RIM having to worry about that market ..
Consumer market sure Apple can live it up and have everyone play with the App store .. knock yourself out. No doubt Apple is doing some exciting things and to me any device is a portion of mobility.
Whats the TCO?
How’s the carrier coverage? Is it the same for east coast, mid-west, and West coast user?
How about device management?
Device usage tracking?
RIM comes out on top of all those as they offer a model(s) on every carrier that is out there. They also have different form factors for different users. Apple has 1 model on one carrier with the LONE difference capacity (which is not expandable), 3G is nice but unless ALL your users live in major metro areas not much of a reason to pay extra for it.
Grasp that mobilty is a little more then having cool Apps (of which the only ones with polish are entertainment focused)
Analysts are a dime a dozen. I’d like to see forrester or gartners report Q1 next year and how they really rate Iphone as a mobile platform. Too me it’s still way too much hype and people drinking the kool-aid with no clue what goes into providing a mobile solution to thousands of users.
@G4 Dualie
I’ve noticed that too and it reminded me of Apple before Steve came back and trimmed the product lines.
RIM is hosed. Toast. Fuct.
They will be forced to admit soon that their feature-poor iPhone spoofs are poor imitations of the real thing.
Sorry, BBTards. Your platform is crap.
BuhBye.
Oh, and by the way…
You can read comments with less political correctness, more arrogant assertions, and no respect for public opinion (including yours) at:
http:// rip-ragged.com/dross
I welcome comments from those who agree with me and those who like to be abused in public.
@G4Dualie,
“Have you seen how many models of BBs there are? There must be at least 22 different models!
Models 8000, 8001, 8002, 8003, 8004, 8005, 8006, 8007, 8009, blah, blah, blah. And that’s just the 8000 series… heh, heh, heh.
When faced with choices like that most consumers will never be happy with their purchase.
Apple offers two models and they’re flying off the shelf. Two models and the only differentiation is storage capacity.”
I’m really glad that Apple only has 2 models of iPhone now. It’s been shown time and time again that the more choices people have, the less satisfied they are with the choice they eventually make. Apple understands this, which is why they have such a small product line compared to other tech companies of similar size. This is a phenomenon lost on many so-called analysts when they comment that Apple has to expand their product line in order to compete in the mobile phone arena.
Their success over the past 11 years is proof that this way of thinking has merit; their customer satisfaction ratings are among the highest in the industry, their revenues and profits continue to rise. Every anti-Apple analyst and pundit has overlooked this for years, and there is no sign that they will get it anytime soon.
It still boggles my mind that those who continue to label users of Apple products “fanboys”, “cultists”, etc. consistently fail to ask the question WHY Apple has such a loyal following.
How can the blackberry be a ‘man’s phone’ when it has a tacky little toy keyboard more suited to the long nails ladies tend to have? All that it is missing is some glossy pink color!
The iPhone, however, has many more uses (not to mention doing them well, too) and actually looks like something you’d pull out of a briefcase.
Apple did something profound to the cellphone industry. It actually made them THINK about DESIGN (by golly!) – even if the resulting attempts are still mired to clumsiness, I suppose it’s a start.
But it probably won’t save them, either.
“nakrus
I could swear I’m reading the comments of a bunch of children bragging about their new toy. Don’t you understand that the Blackberry is a man’s phone?.”
if by “mans phone” you mean overpriced, under featured, gas guzzler that sits under a tarp in the garage waiting for someone to try and make it work for a decade before selling to some other moro…. errr “man” who can waste his time and money on it, yeah. yeah we do.
or did you mean “has lots and lots of buttons to look like it does something, but we don’t know what cause we never read the 2 inch thick manual”???
or did you mean “bought to compensate for something”????
look those are the 3 definitions in my dictionary under “man’s” possessive. are there more?
“I’d love to see any of the wunderkins on here actually have to support, manage and….” blah blah blah something blah….
so, we have two types of astroturfer/FUDmiester now!
the wintroll, genus headusupbalmerusasses: posts about how windows superior market share and cheap price will always rule the world. fails to note that greater numbers do not mean greater evolution of life form. allergic to logic points about insects out numbering humans, yet not being superior.
and
the phonetroll, genus hollyshittiuswheredthisnewiphoneuscomefromus: posts about the superior company aspects of their chosen phone, forgetting that companies IT depts should make tech usable for employees, not manageable for their cushy six figure salary butts to sit and play minesweeper.
don’t worry, future generations will mock you!
evolution, i give it two opposable thumbs up!
Oh, for God’s sake, what is your obsession with RIM?
Christ, go like your iPhones. Be happy. Everyone else isn’t the evil empire that must be destroyed for you to be able to like your iPhone thingies.
Ballmer’s call to RIM, “Guys, I’m hearing you need a new OS, while I know we’ve had our competitive spats in the Smart Phone market in the past, we really need to team up. Look at the facts here guys, We’ve help Palm with Windows Mobile and we can help you too. All you need to do is start running Windows Mobile on all the handsets you sell. At least toss me a bone here guy’s Apple is killing us too. Zune sells are in the sh!tter, more and more people are switching to Mac cause Vista is the crapper, and as you know the iPhone is becoming the smart phone market, If Google were to get it’s act together soon, we could be fighting Android together too. So, Guys can we count on you to accept Windows Mobile as your savior?”
i ordered my iPhone on saturday.
still nothing.
no shipment notice.
back-ordered.
I WANT MY iPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!