“You’re under oath. The opposing attorney asks you: What did you know and when did you know it? Big Trouble,” Jean-Louis Gassée writes for Monday Note. “The legal eagle already knows the answer, that’s the basic rule: Only ask questions you know the answers to. You’re about to incriminate yourself.”
“Far from new, shareholder lawsuits are becoming routine,” Gassée writes. “Announce bad results and a specialized law firm files a class action suit on behalf of aggrieved shareholders. The savviest of these firms keep small-scale shareholders on retainer, ready to be proffered as representatives of the injured class.”
Gassée writes, “For [RIM half-CEOs] Lazaridis and Balsillie, the What and When Question is an exceptionally dangerous one… To make your numbers at the end of the quarter, one is tempted to force-ship product into channels ahead of their actual needs, before the actual ‘sell-out’ to real customers. Eventually, the channels barf and embarrassing numbers emerge. For the PlayBook, RIM is spectacularly silent about units sold vs. units shipped. Given that the co-CEOs have never been shy about actual or fantasized feats, their caution on the number of PlayBooks actually sold is notable.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jai G.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Beleaguered RIM reportedly strong-arming several carriers to stock half-baked BlackBerries – June 20, 2011
Former RIM employee: Company ‘brims with hubris’; ‘culturally blind’ to consumers – June 17, 2011
Beleaguered RIM’s sixth-biggest investor ‘on the way out’ – June 17, 2011
Beleaguered RIM misses on revenue, announces layoffs – June 16, 2011
O2 rejects RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook; won’t sell in UK due to end user issues – June 16, 2011
Even RIM doesn’t want their Playbook tablet – June 9, 2011
RIM half-CEO’s biggest fear comes to fruition: Apple unveils iMessage app and service – June 6, 2011
As RIM flounders, investors talk of replacing half-CEOs – May 31, 2011
“People want physical keyboards. People want physical keyboards. People want physical keyboards.People want physical keyboards.People want physical keyboards. People want physical keyboards. People want physical……”
How else can you explain this level of technological ass-kicking?
The Playbook has no physical keyboard? 😉
But it was designed by people who believe it needs one.
It doesn’t need it’s own keyboards. It uses the keyboard of the BlackBerry phone.
> For the PlayBook, RIM is spectacularly silent about units sold vs. units shipped.
Are the “channels barfing” yet…?
For iPad, units sold equals units shipped, about one week later. Right now, I guess the “unit” is technically sold (on order) even before it is manufactured.
this is the tech media bias at work. The companies dump android crap in huge piles and count it against actual iProducts. The fact that apple can only support a fraction of the media with it’s add buy means there is a huge force of nature in the ad paid titans that get most of their money from anybody BUT apple. They have a fiduciary duty to come out against apple, because that’s where their bread is buttered.
One could say that this is the essence of corporate corruption: When the truth is irrelevant, the competitiveness of your products is irrelevant, and all that matters is pleasing your shareholders by any means possible, nefarious or otherwise.
and that folks is the plot of so many sci fiction movies. corporate greed, yet we ignore the many wrongs that real corporations do in the name of profit, including apple.
I am fan of things apple, but apple waiting like most of the corporations are waiting for their overseas profits to be reduced to 5.25% from 35% before importing back to the US. Apple has billions like, 70 billion, and now they are holding roughly 4 billion for ransom. I mean come on, they are not going to miss it, hell they make double that a quarter.
apple has 12 billion, google has what 17 billion and MSFT has nearly 30 billion. come one guys, pay your taxes. The country is enough of the mess as it.
I can understand why any respectable non military company would not want to pay US taxes. The military morons would spend it all in a single day and be wanting more. With a tenth of the budget of the US military, the entire world could be given education to help them to become critical thinkers and refuse to engage in war.
Why did all of this foreign cash get massed outside the USA?
Go back to the 2years of budget surpluses under Clinton. It was these years when a big tax planning strategy was being put in place. Most major US corps sold their I.P. to shell companies located in tax havens. There was a one time large gain (reason for he tax surplus those years) because you had to fair value the intellectual property. Since then, they have been chrging their USA companies large “royalties” which are tax deductible in the USA. Now they ask for special treatment to bring the money back to the USA. How more unamerican can you get!!!
Litigating because you took a risk (an investment) and it didn’t pan out? I loathe the lawyers that file this stuff as well as the people who initiate it.
Gassee is a far better journalist and writer than as a business man heading up R&D or anything
“To make your numbers at the end of the quarter, one is tempted to force-ship product into channels ahead of their actual needs”
I also notice locally that RIM is BOMBARDING television with happy shiny smiley ads Ads ADS ADS attempting to sell their POS PlayBook. Nice try. 😛