Yearly Archive: 2010

A lot has happened in the world of Research In Motion since my book was published six months ago. Share price is down 38 per cent and some analysts, particularly in the U.S., have gone sour on the stock. The BlackBerry Torch seems to be selling well, but the iPhone 4 may be selling better. Several governments, including India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have been holding RIM hostage trying to gain access to encrypted email messages for security purposes. All of this reminds me of the bitter patent battle in 2005-2006 when it appeared RIM was finished...

Just back from a week’s holiday in Nova Scotia. Ate lobster daily, unlike the Globe and Mail’s Ian Brown who spent the summer writing about food across Canada, came to Nova Scotia, and declared he would eat no lobster. We managed to miss not only Hurricane Earl but also the blessing of the BlackBerrys by Rev. Lisa Vaughan of St. Timothy’s Anglican Church in Hatchet Lake. “I think they traditionally used to call it Plough Monday, where people used to bring their farming equipment and tools to the church to be blessed,” she told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. “Most of us...

Cantech Letter has done a fun item called “7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the BlackBerry.” My favorite is: “In the third quarter of 2009 RIM added 4.4 million subscribers, a number equal to the population of Ireland.” Here’s the link.

Economists have it easy. When they make a prediction about some exotic marker like GDP growth or inflation, they can keep revising their numbers as time passes so they look good in the end. The same is not the case when it comes to talking about technology. Take my post on May 17, BlackPad Bunkum, where I went to some lengths to say that Research In Motion couldn’t possibly have a competitor to iPad on the way because co-CEO Mike Lazaridis had said he’d never do it. The size of the current BlackBerry was just fine with him. Moreover, touchscreen...

And they are generally positive for the new BlackBerry Torch. Walter S. Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal says it’s “a big improvement … closer to its newer rivals.” As for the speculation that the future of Research In Motion is behind it, he says “RIM is hardly dead or dying.” His main complaint is that there are too few apps. For Dushan Batrovic of Dundee Capital Markets the apps are not important. “We have downloaded a total of 10-15 apps on our iPhone and rarely use any of them. Perhaps there are some perfect apps out there but we...

A friend has written to me, saying: For modesty and security reasons, Saudi  Arabia and the Gulf States have ruled that all BlackBerry users must dress their BlackBerrys in tiny Niqabs and veils.

An announcement by officials in Saudi Arabia about “positive developments” means that BlackBerry service will continue uninterrupted in that country. While Research In Motion has yet to comment, it would appear that there’s a deal in the works allowing some kind of official access to messages. Pardon me for thinking this thought, but I wonder how much of this issue has been about brinksmanship on the part of the Saudi government. This whole imbroglio is reminiscent of the patent battle in the U.S. with its threat of an injunction against RIM in 2006. The timing of the Saudi move was...

I haven’t held the BlackBerry Torch 9800 yet. Neither have very many others. Even fewer outsiders have tested the device, just launched yesterday, for anything like the week necessary to comment. But that doesn’t seem to stop analysts, bloggers and mere passers-by from pronouncing on the latest offering from Research In Motion. It’s a double but not a home run, said the Toronto Star. “RIM failed to deliver the kind of quantum leap it needed to fend off the competitive threats from Apple and Android,” said a note from Goldman Sachs. Such commentary sounds like the Woody Allen line about...