“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.]
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