Apple and Research in Motion may disagree on many things, but they’re of the same mind when it comes to the the netbook phenomenon: It will be short-lived. Asked about Apple’s interest in the category during a late-April earnings call, COO Tim Cook said the company has none. Turns out, Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie feels pretty much the same way.
2009 is going to be a banner year for Google’s Android mobile operating system. Strategy Analytics estimates shipments of handsets running the OS will grow 900 percent this year as more vendors adopt it. At that rate, it will far outpace the growth of Apple’s iPhone, whose shipments the company expects to increase 79 percent in 2009.
Question for you: What was the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009? What’s that? Apple’s iPhone? Wrong. According to market researcher NPD, it was Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Curve, which slipped past the iconic device in market share bolstered by Verizon’s Buy One, Get One promotion.
“Sentiment on the stock has never been worse in our opinion….We are somewhat concerned that earnings, subscribers and unit guidance are all likely to be guided down–sequentially.” Broadpoint AmTech analyst Rob Sanderson said that of Research in Motion in a March 18 note to clients. Boy, was he ever wrong. After market close Thursday afternoon, RIM reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that easily bested analyst expectations.
Amid the firehose of announcements at this morning’s Apple event, one in particular stood out. The first real combined sales number for the iPhone and iPod touch. Apple has sold 30 million of them. Of those, 17 million were iPhones. The remaining 13 million were iPod touches.
Research in Motion’s effort to emulate Apple’s phenomenally successful App Store has a new name: BlackBerry App World. Not much of an improvement over “BlackBerry Application Center,” but an improvement nonetheless.
Troubling reports today from Japan about Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Bold. NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, has suspended sales of the device after receiving multiple reports that it’s prone to overheating. This just days after the Bold’s debut in Japan.
Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry are little more than consumer phenomena. This according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who professes to be unimpressed by both devices. In remarks at Microsoft’s annual Strategic Update in New York Tuesday, Ballmer said that while consumers might be fascinated with the iPhone and BlackBerry, carriers and OEMs much prefer Windows Mobile.
Two weeks after Canadian regulators dropped the hammer on Blackberry maker Research-In-Motion for its stock option backdating scheme, the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped it again. Today, the agency charged four RIM execs with illegally granting stock options to company employees over an eight-year period from 1998 through 2006.
Earlier this week Research in Motion revealed that “certain of its officers and directors” had reached a settlement with the Ontario Securities Commission over backdating stock options. Now we know who those certain officers and directors are: Co-Chief Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, Chief Financial Officer Dennis Kavelman, and Finance Director Angelo Loberto.
Though its launched was marred by software glitches and a chorus of middling-to-scathing reviews, Research in Motion’s high-profile smartphone, the BlackBerry Storm, has actually sold fairly well.
Certainly, it hasn’t stumbled as badly as some reports have suggested. Verizon said this week that it’s sold one million Storm handsets since it began peddling them in the states on Nov. 21.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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