This is the most bizarre entreaty to software developers by a hardware maker that I have ever seen. And it won’t help.
This is especially true in light of this statement yesterday by RIM CEO Thorsten Heins:
I think we have a clear shot at being the number three mobile operating system in the world.
Is that the best goal he can come up with?
There’s nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now.
– RIM CEO Thorsten Heins.
Interesting. Here is a chart showing the BlackBerry-maker’s stock price over the past 12 months.
This is happening…
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
Netflix says that it has no plans to support Netflix streaming on Blackberry devices, including RIMM’s PlayBook tablet.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription $ required) that sources tell them that Apple is developing a CDMA iPhone, compatible with Verizon’s network in the US, which could be available in September. Apple stock is up strongly after hours on the rumor. Apple has, as of now, not confirmed this rumor.
If this is correct, this is a major blow to RIMM and to Android. As of now, approximately 6:30 pm Eastern, AAPL is up 2.5%, RIMM is down 2.3% and Verizon is up 3.7% in after hours trading.
Disclosure: I own Apple stock. Nothing on this website should be construed as investment advice.
Update: Probably as a result of this rumor from the WSJ, Apple set another new all-time closing high today, March 30, 2010. Apple now has a market cap higher that Wal-Mart (again).
After reporting stellar financial performance in the most recent quarter, RIMM now has some news that is not so good. It suffered an email collapse on its Blackberry service throughout the Americas. This is possible because of the centralized nature of RIMM’s push email technology. It creates what is essentially a single point of failure risk to the system as a whole. It appears the outage lasted 8 hours.
Even worse for RIMM, this outage is the third in a month.
The issue represents the third such failure within weeks and comes just as RIM is counting on continued strong sales to buffer itself against competition from the iPhone, which may come close to or match BlackBerry sales based on some analyst estimates.
I am not kidding about that. They blew away analysts projections for the quarter and gave very strong guidance for the next quarter.
What does this mean? Well, two companies right now own the smartphone space: RIMM and Apple. The RIMM news came on the same day that a market research firm reported that Apple iPhone now has a bigger share of the users in the smartphone market than Windows Mobile.
Disclosure: I am long in AAPL. Nothing on this blog should be construed as investment advice.