RIM Co-CEO: Come With Me and You'll Be in a World of Pure Imagination

According to Research in Motion Co-CEO Jim Balsillie, the company’s forthcoming BlackBerry PlayBook is launching into a perfect world. A world in which there is unwavering carrier support for the device and massive demand for it as well. A world in which the long-term challenges facing RIM cease to exist. A world in which the PlayBook recreates the success of the first BlackBerry in 1999.

In other words, an imaginary world. At this point, anyway.

During RIM’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday, Balsillie talked up the PlayBook no end, touting it repeatedly as “a winner” and the first in a series of devices that will “future proof” the company. “[PlayBook is] about super high performance,” he said. “It’s about full Web fidelity. It’s about a no compromise environment….It’s about enterprise greatness.”

Enterprise greatness, eh? If that’s the case, how many PlayBook’s does RIM see itself shipping? Quite a few, said Balsillie, though he declined to provide any hard numbers. “The interest [in PlayBook] is extremely high,” he said. “Let me put it this way: I have many corporate clients that have approached us about, you know, each wanting tens of thousands, several tens of thousands of PlayBooks.”

I certainly hope so, because investors weren’t too happy with RIM’s latest financials or its forecast for the current quarter. And Balsillie’s remarks today–ironically uttered while shareholders were busy slashing billions of dollars from RIM’s market capitalization–only added more pressure to the PlayBook’s launch next month. The device has to be the “winner” Balsillie claims it is. Otherwise the investment in PlayBook research and development that RIM blames for its lower first-quarter outlook will have been for naught.

Anonymous

Jim should stay off calls as he does go overboard.

RIM can’t win in the eyes investors though. The quarter they reported was pretty solid. For close of the year was higher then ever. They are showing as they do all the things people have been railing them about is going to impact them in the short term (upcoming guidance). R&D cost money, lining up better hardware cost money. Do people forget they bought a bunch of companies to strength them as they build their willy wonka factory?

TAT
Documents to Go
Cellular Mania
QNX
etc

It’s not like RIM has had new hardware out since last fall so unsure why a dip is some startling event for analyst who for FOUR YEARS have been telling the world RIM is DOA.

I feel though they will come out of this stronger. The new hardware is solid. The carriers do see RIM as a strong partner, interest in Playbook is high, enterprise is very interested in tablets. Apple is not exactly doing everything they can to meet enterprise needs has their own supply issues, face the same competition, Steve is likely not coming back, could pass away due to a terrible illness.

I never understood the dance of death people do for RIM. They are not some evil company. They have solid technology, provide best in class security for mobile devices, the del facto standard for enterprise mobile device management. Are they the Yankees of mobility or the Red Soxs?

We’ll see how scrumpteous Playbook is in the coming weeks and if its the golden ticket RIM needs to stay in the race. I doubt it will please the naysayers regardless. I look forward to a solid option to keep this competitive as Apple is not exactly wowing me with their marginal updates lately.
http://www.mediahound.biz @Edw3rd

This reminds me of IBM exec’s explaining to the world how OS2 Warp would keep Windows95 out of the enterprises… tsk, tsk.
Anonymous

All I can say is that RIM really needs the Playbook to kick ass and take names, and I seriously doubt they can produce a compelling product.

RIM Co-CEO: Come With Me and You'll Be in a World of Pure Imagination

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