Research In Motion vice president of BlackBerry Enterprise Server John Vandermay has left the company to assume a new position with Gemcom Software International, the Financial Post reported on Wednesday. Gemcom Software International is a software mining company based in Vancouver. While at RIM, Vandermay led a team of more than 400 software developers and testers working on RIM’s BES, among other projects. Vandermay is not the first executive to leave the Waterloo, Canada-based company in recent history. RIM’s chief marketing officer Keith Pardy left the firm in March. In addition, RIM’s former vice president of digital marketing and media Brian Wallace jumped ship to Samsung in June, shortly before Samsung poached RIM’s former BlackBerry PlayBook senior manager Ryan Biden. In August, RIM’s senior director of global developer relations Mike Kirkup announced that he was leaving the company after a 10-year stint.
RIM reports Q2 earnings: Revenue and EPS both miss; phone and PlayBook shipments decline
Research In Motion on Thursday reported its earnings results for the fiscal second quarter. Revenue and EPS both missed estimates; the vendor reported revenue of $4.17 billion and earnings of $0.80 per share. RIM had previously forecast revenue of between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion and earnings of between $0.75 and $1.05 per share for its August quarter, and Wall Street expected second-quarter revenue of $4.47 billion and EPS of $0.88. Net income in the second quarter totalled $329 million. RIM also had projected handset shipments to reach between 11 and 12.5 million units, but missed there as well — the company shipped only 10.6 million BlackBerry phones in its August quarter. RIM still managed to push its subscriber base past 70 million for the first time, up 40% year-over-year. As for RIM’s QNX tablet, PlayBook shipments fell well below expectations; the company only shipped 200,000 units during the device’s first full quarter of availability, less than half of analysts’ expectations (700,000). RIM shipped 500,000 PlayBooks in its previous quarter. The company’s stock fell 11% immediately following its report. Full press release after the break. RIM’s full press release follows below.
BlackBerry PlayBook Doomed Like HP TouchPad, Analyst Predicts
As Research In Motion prepares to report its fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday after the market closes, the future of the company and its next-generation products again takes center stage.
While estimates for RIM’s second and third quarters are expected by some analysts to beat Wall Street’s consensus, performance of the vendor’s just-released BlackBerry 7 smartphones obviously doesn’t weigh as heavily on the minds of analysts as RIM’s future products and strategy.
QNX and its ability to compete with the likes of Apple and Google will be analysts’ focus for the next several quarters, and unfortunately for RIM, the only QNX device it has launched to date is the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair believes that there is no “meaningful evidence” that RIM is poised to turn things around. Analysts have lowered their expectations for the second quarter and while that may help the vendor when it reports its earnings on Thursday, it will do little for the company in the long run according to Blair. He also says BlackBerry 7 device sales have been mixed thus far, and though they offer a significant improvement compared to older BlackBerry phones, they “should have come out with 18 – 24 months ago.”
On the PlayBook tablet, Blair’s opinion is even more dour. “Last quarter RIM talked about shipping 500,000 units but did not speak of sell-through for obvious reasons,” the analyst wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday. “Channel fill could turn up another decent shipment number this year in the 500,000 – 700,000 unit range but we believe sell-through has been weak enough that that number will trend down over the year and RIM will likely send the PlayBook into the same graveyard as the HP TouchPad.”
RIM has a lot to prove following its first-quarter results, which missed estimates and were accompanied by news of imminent layoffs. A win on Thursday would be a nice start, but the company must also be focused on instilling investor confidence in RIM’s management, strategy and next-generation QNX platform.
During RIM’s second-quarter earnings call, co-CEO Jim Balsillie noted that the company plans to offer price cuts on the not-so-popular BlackBerry PlayBook in the form of rebates, and an incentive program for enterprise sales. Additionally, Balsillie mentioned that there will be a major software update for the PlayBook coming soon. RIM reported during its earnings call on Thursday that it only sold 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets into channels during its August quarter, after having shipped 500,000 units in the fiscal first quarter. Wall Street was expecting PlayBook shipments to total 700,000 units in the quarter.
RIM shares drop 20% after disappointing results
Investors punished Research In Motion Friday, driving the stock down 20 percent and raising fresh questions about whether management—and even the company—can overcome a raft of troubles.
The sell-off, which in the first hours of trade wiped out some $3 billion of RIM’s market capitalization, underscored how bad times have become for the one-time smartphone leader, once a byword for corporate communication.
One analyst, Edward Snyder of Charter Equity Research, described the quarterly report issued by RIM on Thursday as “another nail in the coffin of management,” while others spoke of shock, disappointment and a ticking clock.
The report was chock-full of bad news from the maker of BlackBerry: It posted a sharp drop in quarterly profit, painted a dismal picture for the current quarter and said it now expects to reach only the lower end of an already reduced full-year outlook.
Moreover, it only reinforced a growing sense that the company is in danger of falling too far behind Apple Inc , with its iPhone and iPad, and a host of competitors making devices that run on Google Inc’s Android software.
“Investors are telling us that a change needs to happen very quickly. The market is saying that the management are not the right guys to lead the company going forward,” said Barry Schwartz, vice president and portfolio manager at Baskin Financial Services.
Run by co-founder Mike Lazaridis and salesman sidekick Jim Balsillie, who joined Lazaridis as co-CEO well before RIM had ever shipped a BlackBerry, the company set it sights on bringing out a tablet computer to compete with Apple’s iPad.
But results of the effort—a tablet called the PlayBook—have so far been disastrous. It shipped only about 200,000 PlayBooks to stores in the second quarter, roughly one-third of what analysts expected.
“My guess is they’re probably losing money on it significantly,” said Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton, who nonetheless warned that investors may be getting carried away with worry.
“I think it’s a complete overreaction,” he said. “Should they be down? Probably. This much? No.”
RIM’s TSX-listed shares fell 19 percent to $23.62 on Friday.
That sort of drop will only increase pressure on senior executives, who have been cajoled to step aside by investors and analysts concerned about repeated failures to execute strategy.
Lazaridis and Balsillie each own more than 5 percent of the company and both also share the role of chairman of the board, which investors complain makes it more difficult for the board to act independently.
RIM says the chairman titles help it sell its devices into emerging markets where the Canadian company has garnered most of its growth in recent years.
Not only do both men have to worry about the security of their jobs, they will almost certainly will be under pressure to take big, dramatic steps to turn around the company. That could mean a break-up or a sale.
“I’ve got to think that this is an attractive acquisition candidate, especially for private equity,” said Thornton. “The valuation is very undemanding. They’re still very profitable and cash flow positive. They’ve a nice recurring revenue base that no other handset manufacturer has.”
Just this month an activist investor said it was rallying other shareholders in a bid to empower the board to look at options including spinning off patents or selling the entire company.
Baskin Financial’s Schwartz in one more voice joining the chorus for change.
“A dividend needs to be started immediately, share buyback needs to be increased dramatically, management needs to make a change and either an acquisition ... some kind of merger, being taken over,” he said. “That will stop the bleeding.”
BlackBerry PlayBook price slashing begins: $249 and up for Rogers workers
Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie revealed on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that RIM would soon be dropping prices on its BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. While the new price points have not yet been disclosed, it looks like the first move in carriers’ efforts to clear their shelves actually started this past Tuesday. Long-time RIM comrade Rogers has launched an internal sale on each of RIM’s three PlayBook models, and company employees are now able to purchase the slate at discounts of up to 50% off. Normally $499.99, the 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is now just $249, the 32GB model drops to $349 from $599.99, and the high-end 64GB PlayBook drops to $399 from its normal $699.99 price tag. While it is unclear what RIM plans to charge end users for the PlayBook moving forward, these prices could give us an idea of what’s in store. A link to a larger version of the image of Rogers’ PlayBook sale page follows below.
Note that all prices are in CAD.
E2EK1EL
Added to my daily iPhone units I carry around, I bought a White iPhone 3GS 32GB today. Bad thing about this phone, it's from AT&T and whoever did a piss poor jailbreaking job didn't realize loading the iPad baseband of 06.15.00 causes so much problems.
This thing was in the worst jailbreak state i've ever seen (loading screens that made no sense), had to use my old method of restoring with this "ultra recovery" I had to figure out last year. Returning back to the jailbreaking scene for this damn 3GS.
The back ups w/ dates are sealed and imaged, so if anything goes wrong ... i can restore to a clean phone. Which rarely ever happens ...
Also there's backs up in iCloud too.
("B" stands for clean imaged back up of 4.3.5, incase I need an unlock)
E2EK1EL
Great Update.
New SF2 Collection & Final Fight @ the Appstore.
E2EK1EL
MuscleNerd Announces a Major Update to the RedSn0w Jailbreak Utility
MuscleNerd has announced a major update to RedSn0w that removes the need to select an IPSW and brings the ability to save and submit your SHSH Blobs to Cydia.
Will be pushing out a major redsn0w feature upgrade before my trip to Korea: http://is.gd/PMAdT1 (and look, no IPSW selection button!)
The new version of RedSn0w will be released before Monday. Rather than requiring ipsw selection, RedSn0w will now automatically fetch the important pieces directly from Apple (and caches them so that it never needs to re-fetch them again).
Check out the screenshots below and stay tuned to iClarified for more info and tutorials. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, etc using the links at the very bottom of the page...
For those wondering, the new RedSn0w "won't auto-fetch the betas (since they're not public). You need to provide them (once)."
Mercedes-Benz shows off “iPhone Interface Plus” concept, coming 2012
E2EK1EL
Chronic Dev Team Has Discovered 5 Userland Exploits In iOS 5 For iPad 2 And Possibly iPhone 5
More good news for users who like to jailbreak their iOS device. MuscleNerd, member of the iPhone Dev team had just announced that he plans to release a major update for Redsn0w - their popular jailbreaking tool.
We now have RedmondPie reporting from MyGreatFest that iPhone hacker, Joshua Hill of Chronic Dev Team, better known by his Twitter handle p0sixninja has just announced that they've discovered not one but five userland exploits in iOS 5, which should help in releasing an untethered jailbreak for Apple's upcoming mobile operating system.
MyGreatFest is the world’s first convention for the jailbreak community, which is taking place today. Members of the jailbreak community such as Saurik – founder of Cydia – the installer for jailbreak apps, p0sixninja and iOPK - members of the Chronic Dev team who had developed greenpois0n – a popular jailbreak tool were expected to speak at the event.
RedmondPie reports:
P0sixninja looked ecstatic when he gave the announcement a few minutes ago, in which it was stated that iPad 2 and the iPhone 5 can be jailbroken using five userland exploits which have been discovered over time. [..]
[..] What is even more fantastic about this news is how all of these exploits are userland ones. And as quoted by P0sixninja himself “it’s the record breaking number of exploits found”.
These userland exploits are, as suggested by the name, related to software. Unlike hardware-based exploits, these can be patched. A hardware revision wouldn’t matter that much in this case.
It looks like the userland exploits in iOS 5 were also discovered for Apple's A5 processor that powers iPad 2 and it is widely speculated to also power iPhone 5.
Comex had used a userland jailbreak in JailbreakMe and Spirit, which have been the easiest solutions to jailbreak iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. However, unlike a bootrom exploit, a userland exploit can be patched with an iOS software update. We've usually seen Apple promptly releasing a minor iOS software update to patch the userland exploits.
Chronic Dev team had recently revealed that they've been actively working on an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5. It means that the Chronic Dev team could release an untethered jailbreak as soon as iOS 5 is publicly available.
The cat and mouse game between Apple and the jailbreak community just got a lot more interesting. As always, we'll keep you posted if there are any further updates, so stay tuned here at iPhone Hacks or join our Facebook Fan page or follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our RSS feed.
Is Apple About To Hire Another World Famous iPhone Hacker?
During a recent visit to San Francisco for Intel's IDF Conference, prolific iPhone hacker MuscleNerd made a visit to Apple's campus in neighboring Cupertino.
He tweeted a picture (below) of a visitor's nametag Apple gave him, which says "MuscleNerd" instead of his real name (which we don't know).
This is as preposterous as Agent Smith from The Matrix calling Neo by his hacker alias instead of by his real name.
Translation: Apple is interested in befriending and hiring another iPhone hacker.
This news comes just a few weeks after Apple offered an internship to Nicholas Allegra, a teenage iPhone hacking prodigy from suburban New York. Allegra said that he does not plan to continue his iPhone hacking.
Is Apple trying to scoop up another iPhone hacker ahead of the iOS 5 launch? Allegra was considered one of the best; he was often singlehandedly responsible for software that let the world "jailbreak" its iPhones.
We hear Apple pays pretty well, and is one of the best companies to work for in the country.
MuscleNerd too has been a large contributor to the iPhone jailbreaking scene, and he has over 230,000 Twitter followers.
Without Allegra and MuscleNerd, the elite community of iPhone hackers known as the iPhone Dev Team will be significantly crippled.
See below for an image of the famous Apple Store t-shirt and name tag MuscleNerd received.
We've said it before and we'll say it again: if you can't beat em, hire em?
Watch Saurik, P0sixninja, and Others Speak About Jailbreaking at MyGreatFest
Watch saurik, p0sixninja, and other members of the jailbreak community, speak at MyGreatFest via videos posted by VIZBOXtv.
Earlier today at the conference, Chronic Dev Team announced that they've discovered five userland exploits that will all be chained together to accomplish a jailbreak for iOS 5.
As iCloud and iOS 5 launch nears, Apple plans iCloud backup reset for Sept. 22
According to a posting on the Apple Developer boards this afternoon, Apple will be resetting iCloud Backup data on Thursday, September 22nd. We believe Apple is performing this reset for the release of iOS 5 GM, which will be released around the same time of the reset. iOS 5 GM will be the last release before iOS 5¡äs official debut in early October, like we previously reported. This reset doesn¡¯t include data from mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, or bookmarks.
"On Thursday, September 22, the iCloud Backup data will be reset. Backing up to iCloud or restoring from an iCloud backup will be unavailable from 9 AM PDT ¨C 5 PM PDT. If you attempt a backup or restore during this time, you will receive an alert that the backup or restore was not successful. After this reset, you will be unable to restore from any backup created prior to September 22. A full backup will happen automatically the next time your device backs up to iCloud."
Along with iOS 5, we are hearing two new iPhones will be accompanying it, and will be announced in late September and available for purchase October 7th-ish. Check out last week¡¯s post for all the details.
E2EK1EL
T-Mobile USA CEO To Employees: “We Are Not Going To Get iPhone 5 This Year”
If you're eagerly waiting for T-Mobile USA to offer iPhone 5 on its network, then don't count on it just yet.
TmoNews reports that they've received an image of an internal news posting, which reveals that T-Mobile USA Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman has informed employees during a company town hall meeting held on the September 15th, that it won't be getting iPhone 5 this year.
TmoNews reports:
"Our business is working very hard to improve performance over the last couple of years and we've had some great success," said Brodman. New products and value plans are fueling customer response, he added, and Brodman expects the excitement to continue into the holiday season as T-Mobile introduces two new smartphones. Note: "We are not going to get the iPhone 5 this year," Brodman said.
This doesn't mean that T-Mobile USA won't get iPhone 5 in the future, but seems to suggest that T-Mobile USA won't be offering iPhone 5 when it is launched in the next few weeks. You may recall, Verizon started offering iPhone 4 earlier in the year, almost 7 months after it was available on AT&T's network.
Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that suggests that Sprint - the third largest carrier in the US will offer iPhone 5 along with AT&T and Verizon. However, it remains to be seen if Apple will also add T-Mobile USA as its launch partner for iPhone 5, which already has more than a million unlocked iPhones running on its network.
E2EK1EL
Apple’s Fall event set for October 4th, Tim Cook to unveil iPhone 5
We’re getting closer and closer. According to AllThingsD, Apple is currently planning to hold the company’s Fall event on October 4th. The report also notes that Apple CEO Tim Cook will be introducing the iPhone 5 most likely without Steve Jobs, though it’s certainly possible Jobs could attend. As far as availability: “Sources added that the plan is now to make the new device available for purchase within a few weeks after the announcement.” We’d suggest that Apple is just setting expectations a little too low and if we had to bet, we’d say that the iPhone 5 would be available within two weeks of the announcement, possibly even a week after.
(Tired of all these IP5 or IP4S or Whatever, too many rumors with this iPhone launch and everyone has been totally off this year.
At this point, until we see the invites or official confirmation of this keynote and etc from Apple ... it comes when it comes.)
E2EK1EL
Two years ago, this case use to be "clear white" and this was my first proper IP3G case.
LightsOut
Remarkable!
:rolleyes:
E2EK1EL
Even more "remarkable!"
Less then 1/2 foot drop by one of my clients.
LightsOut
Yeah, okay. :o
Less than half a foot eh....so lets say 4 inches.....
