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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 1:24 am
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 8:36 pm
by End User
BlackBerry Nears the End as Jobs Disappear and Losses Mount

Nearly $1 billion in losses. They are starting to eat into their cash now.


The Z10 launch has been a disaster for BlackBerry.

The Z10 went from a flagship handset to an entry-level handset within 8 months.

The company was shy in revealing exactly how many BlackBerry 10 devices it sold last quarter.

They sold more BB7 devices than they did BB10.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 1:17 am
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 1:32 am
by just brew it!
clone wrote:
4500 ppl/families lost their income today.

Yup. But tech businesses are volatile, it's a fact of life. People need to realize that.

I know a lot of people who used to work at Bell Labs / Lucent who got screwed when they cratered and let thousands of people go. The Chicago area tech job market still hasn't completely recovered from the Lucent debacle, even though it was over a decade ago. Motorola (also based in the area) has a "binge and purge" reputation as well.

Unfortunately, these days with the f**ked up economy it is much more difficult to have a "Plan B" waiting in the wings. Back in the day ('80s and '90s) it was common knowledge that the best way to get a raise was to switch jobs. Now everyone is thankful to just hang on to whatever job they've got.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 2:24 am
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 2:50 am
by destroy.all.monsters
End User takes a bizarre glee in BB's misfortune's to the point that I consistently wonder if they killed his pets and children in the middle of the night or something. Every single article he brings up has the maximum gloom and doom.

If/when they go it will be a truly sad day. QNX has a lot of potential in the mobile space and they are the last vendor that makes a decent qwerty keyboard. I have zero interest in touch phones and sadly there are no good qwerty android phones.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:05 am
by End User
destroy.all.monsters wrote:
Every single article he brings up has the maximum gloom and doom.

Maximum gloom and doom = reality.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:19 am
by End User
just brew it! wrote:
clone wrote:
4500 ppl/families lost their income today.

Yup. But tech businesses are volatile, it's a fact of life. People need to realize that.

The dot-com bust had a long term impact on me. I lost two jobs over a 7 year period thanks to that crash.

It's a war out there. A fight for survival.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:50 am
by End User
clone wrote:
worse than that, they introduced BB30 and no one noticed.... the media seems more excited/resigned to the death of blackberry at this point than seeing a comeback.

North America was not a launch region for the Z30. Don't blame the media for that one.

And what about the timing? Why would BlackBerry release the Z30 during iPhone launch week? It makes no sense whatsoever.


clone wrote:
4500 ppl/families lost their income today.

Thorsten Heins is cutting jobs to make BlackBerry more attractive to potential buyers. His golden handshake from sale of BlackBerry could surpass $50 million if he plays his cards right. Check out his Employment Arrangements as President & CEO (which "describes the termination benefits that Mr. Heins would receive under the terms of the 2013 Heins Agreement in the event he leaves the Company under various circumstances"). If you want to talk about families losing their income then focus on this BlackBerry proxy filing.

Oh, and don't forget about Thorsten's compensation to date for leading BlackBerry to this point of utter failure - over $20 million by the end of 2013.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:56 am
by End User
destroy.all.monsters wrote:
I have zero interest in touch phones and sadly there are no good qwerty android phones.

Fear not!

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:11 am
by JustAnEngineer
http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-warns- ... 41656.html
Euan Rocha, Reuters wrote:
For the second quarter, the company expects to have sold about 3.7 million BlackBerry smartphones to End User.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:17 am
by End User
JustAnEngineer wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-warns-big-loss-4-500-job-cuts-001341656.html
Euan Rocha, Reuters wrote:
For the second quarter, the company expects to have sold about 3.7 million BlackBerry smartphones to End User.

lol

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:33 am
by Captain Ned
The only remaining question:

Slow zombie or fast zombie?

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:47 am
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:51 am
by just brew it!
destroy.all.monsters wrote:
If/when they go it will be a truly sad day. QNX has a lot of potential in the mobile space

Which means that (assuming they don't manage to drag it down with them) they'll probably sell it off to raise cash and license the OS back from them. Hope so; I think I'd be sadder to see QNX go than BB.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:07 am
by just brew it!
clone wrote:
The dot-com bust had a long term impact on me. I lost two jobs over a 7 year period thanks to that crash.

I won't even ask about wages in the sector, bumped into a friend cppl years back and he was the last person I asked in a casual manner "hey, haven't seen you in years, how are things going?".... his answer was "going through various stages of bankruptcy." and he was serious despite the implied comedy of the response.

I've managed to stay employed, but the dot-com crash was a major contributor to my decision to exit the world of independent consultancy (after approximately a decade doing that) and take a full-time job. After all of my telecom industry clients dried up I took a detour back into the financial industry (where I had some prior experience) for a bit, and ended up taking a full-time job in the defense sector about 8 years ago (where I've survived one round of layoffs, and remain to this day).

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:48 am
by End User
clone wrote:
his answer was "going through various stages of bankruptcy."

Fortunately I never put myself in a position to have a job loss trigger a financial cascade effect that lead to bankruptcy.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 12:38 pm
by just brew it!
End User wrote:
clone wrote:
his answer was "going through various stages of bankruptcy."

Fortunately I never put myself in a position to have a job loss trigger a financial cascade effect that lead to bankruptcy.

Sometimes life doesn't give you a choice. Fortunately I've never been in a situation where I needed to consider bankruptcy, but there have been periods of time where losing a job could've easily pushed things over the edge.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 1:08 pm
by NovusBogus
I left California because after I graduated nobody wanted to hire me, now the big comanies are all going on about 'talent shortage' like its an apocalyptic meteor. Big Tech lied to me in 2003, they lied to me in 2008, now they're lying to everyone again so I don't really have any warm fuzzies for companies going down in flames.

In other news, the Minneapolis area has about 4 percent unemployment. You won't get rich but you'll get good pay with a stable company; mercurial hypemongering is mostly limited to the West Coast. My advice to anyone still trapped in CA is to get out while you still can.

edit: On topic, I do hope BB stays around because I want to see more platform-agnostic phone choices and Google/Android/MS all rub me the wrong way for various reasons. I've been meaning to play around with BB development as I'm told sideloading is easy, but most internet information seems to refer to running Android APKs rather than BB10 stuff so maybe the platform is well and truly gone. Not to mention their midrange phones are all really expensive compared to the alternatives.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 3:30 pm
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 4:46 pm
by JustAnEngineer
Welders in this area make more than $30/hr. Skilled electricians are in even shorter supply.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:04 pm
by destroy.all.monsters
Sliders are most assuredly not good qwerty keyboards.

I'm sure QNX will survive no matter what. Without a major player (or formerly major player in the case of BB) there's not a lot of reason to keep it going as a mobile os. Especially when Sailfish, Ubuntu phone and Firefox OS are right around the corner.

For me BB just works the way I do. Nothing else does as well.

I'd rather they try to offer QNX with and without Blackberry enhancements to handset vendors like Samsung, HTC.

All CEOs no matter how good or bad get amazing golden parachutes - it's just part of the culture unfortunately. Do you think Leo Apotheker has to work another day in his life? Carly Fiorina?

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Sun Sep 22, 2013 2:15 am
by clone
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Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 3:15 pm
by End User

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:27 pm
by chµck
End User wrote:

each shareholder would receive $9 per share in cash.


I feel sorry for the people who are still holding shares in the $15 range from when BBRY was being pumped this past summer after the release of their new phones....

Jk, I don't. Most of them were were betting on NOK to crash and were very vocal about it.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:28 pm
by JohnC

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:45 pm
by just brew it!
JohnC wrote:

Looks like that article must've been written before the news of BB being taken private came out, since it doesn't mention it at all.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:59 pm
by JohnC
Yes, but it doesn't change the facts listed in that article. And it doesn't mean that the offer will go through or that BB might someday recover:
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/ ... over-deal/

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 6:44 am
by just brew it!
JohnC wrote:
Yes, but it doesn't change the facts listed in that article.

True. But the article also expresses skepticism at the idea that anyone would want to buy them in their present state; that bit of speculation has now been clearly demonstrated to be incorrect.

Re: RIM Comeback?

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 1:39 pm
by chµck
Hopefully, there will be a fire sale for their Z30.
Would be a nice backup phone.