Official BlackBerry Thread

[snatman]

[Conspiracy Theory] This bbm launch was planned to fail so that the stock price would plummet allowing for and easier change of hands... [/conspiracy theory]

Thoughts?

valid theory, except for the stock being in freefall for a couple yrs now

[tr1ad]

the app still feels like a beta. jus look at the corners of the chat bubbles, they're totally off. really can't believe that they had this app in beta and going thru testing for so much months now smh

well the app was in the apple store for approval about 6 weeks now
as for the android, it's simple to upload an app to the store as nothing is verified - dozens of fake apps were uploaded

if it does work cross platform there's always whatsapp not so?

[Swisha]

yeah but this is about BBM. if this is the best BlackBerry could do, no wonder they're failing

[M_2NR]

the app still feels like a beta. jus look at the corners of the chat bubbles, they're totally off. really can't believe that they had this app in beta and going thru testing for so much months now smh

well the app was in the apple store for approval about 6 weeks now
as for the android, it's simple to upload an app to the store as nothing is verified - dozens of fake apps were uploaded

if it does work cross platform there's always whatsapp not so?

apps clearly stay that long in that zone for a reason
see khafra post of the "superiority" of BBM as opposed to whatsapp and the likes.

As Strauss mentioned though, it's sad to see RIM/Blackberry go down in such a way. I was really having some hope for BBM.

[tr1ad]

meh...

no biggy

still have my z10 and will continue to use the BlackBerry devices

[originalbling]

anybody using a GPS mapping app? trying to map a route with the phone and display it in google maps etc?

[MISHI]

Meh... selling a z10 with no motherboard and headphones, case etc

[Allergic2BunnyEars]

http://crackberry.com/my-thoughts-black ... ed-morning


"This morning BlackBerry published its Q2 fiscal 2014 financial results by way of press release. They’ve made what I believe is a horrible decision to skip the usual conference call. My understanding is their SEC filing with management discussion and analysis (MD&A) will be out next week. This leaves me with less information than I’d like to base my analysis on. As usual, I’m going to tell it how I see it. No sugar coating. Just balanced commentary.

First of all, the published numbers are worse than they indicated last Friday, the date of their layoff announcement. The pre-announcement was certainly truthful by saying the GAAP loss was close to a billion dollars. What they didn’t tell us until this morning is that the pre-tax loss was actually $1.44 billion. I’m not a tax expert, so when I looked at last week’s pre-announcement I thought that, excluding the Z10 inventory write down, they were pretty close to break even. That’s not the case. They are bleeding badly.

With revenue of $1.6 billion, they had adjusted gross margin of 36%, or $570 million. That’s what is left to fund all expenses. Unfortunately operating expenses amounted to $1.06 billion, so they’re losing loads of cash.

THEY WENT FROM HAVING $3.1 BILLION IN CASH LAST QUARTER TO $2.6 BILLION NOW
This is, of course, confirmed on the cash flow statement. They went from having $3.1 billion in cash last quarter to $2.6 billion now. That’s $2 billion annualized, folks. Hopefully this paints you a crystal clear picture of exactly why they had to cut 4500 jobs last week. It’s sad, but it’s a no brainer. This company can’t survive without the cuts.

Operating expenses consist mostly of R&D and Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A), as most of you who pay attention to financials already know. The company spent almost $900 million on these two line items in Q2. If they are successful in cutting 50% of their operating expenses and hold revenues in place, they should get back to break even.

Let’s now talk about shipments and sell-through. As most of you already understand, the company sells hardware to carriers and other partners, who then sell it to end users. This quarter they recognized revenue on 3.7 million BlackBerry devices, although end customers actually took possession of 5.9 million devices. For comparison, last quarter they shipped 6.8 million devices and sell-through was also 6.8 million.

I’ve always felt that sell-through was the more important metric. Sell-through tells you what actual customers are doing, as opposed to sell-in, which tells you how carriers are behaving. Sell-through is down by 13%, which doesn’t seem horrible but it is. BlackBerry 10 is now in full force, and it only produced one solid quarter of growth (Q1), and is now in decline. This is a very bad sign.

What about the 3.7 million “shipments” this quarter? The company explained in the press release (and the pre-announcement) that actual shipments were higher, but they could only recognize revenue on 3.7 million units. Have they changed their accounting policy? No, they have not. I confirmed this with the company myself just today. I will offer my explanation on things. BlackBerry 10 sales are declining. BlackBerry 7 sales are declining. This is causing the company to be more conservative in recognizing revenue on product that can be returned by carriers if it doesn’t sell. The revenue recognition rules have not changed. What has changed is the risk around the shipments, therefore causing BlackBerry to use these existing rules as best it can to accurately report sales. After all, a device that gets returned to BlackBerry by the channel should never have been counted as revenue.

Another bad sign for the company is the consistent weakness across all geographical regions. Let’s look at some numbers:

North America sales are down 46% from last quarter.
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) sales are down 49% from last quarter
Latin American sales are down 56% from last quarter.
Asia Pacific sales are down 47% from last quarter.
That’s a very consistent drop in sales!

Of course all of this is relative to three month ago, and I’ll repeat myself here because it’s important: This is probably a reflection of the difference in management’s perception between Q1 and Q2 of how realistic it is that a shipment becomes an end customer sale. Sell-through numbers are down 13%, which is very different form the near-50% drop in reported revenue. I believe sell-through is a more important metric in terms of understanding the business trend.

I’d also like to point out that on the cashflow statement this company is still spending a lot of money on intangible asset purchases. The total was $268 million in Q2 and $335 million in Q1. My understanding is that this spending reflects upfront patent licensing expenses. Obviously this is not sustainable. BlackBerry can’t be doing $771 million in quarterly hardware sales while paying a huge portion of this out for licensing. This would make it impossible to continue in the hardware business. So either these licensing fees will drop proportionately with shipments, or BlackBerry has an impossibly unprofitable hardware business that nobody will ever buy, and will get shut down. I think the former argument is more likely at this point.

The only real good news is the growth in BES 10. Since July they’ve taken the installed base of servers from 19,000 to 25,000. This is pretty much the only part of their business that is growing. They absolutely need to keep this momentum going, just as they need to get the cross platform BBM launched, and grow that user base."

Rest can be read at the link...Thoughts? I find it pretty interesting to read thru the comments with some posting that the company's recent behaviour was done to drive share price down.

[Allergic2BunnyEars]

Articles seem to be coming out the wood work now.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... /?page=all

Pretty good read as well.

[tr1ad]

lengthy but an excellent read

shows how much the senior execs didn't want much change

[tr1ad]

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-consid ... m=facebook

Bloomberg is reporting today that BlackBerry may be turning down a different road should funding from Fairfax Financial not pan out in their original deal. Fairfax has agreed to purchase BlackBerry in a deal worth around $4.7 billion however they may not be able to come up with funding to complete the transaction. If that's the case, BlackBerry may look to break up the company into the most valuable parts instead.

Companies like SAP, Cisco and perhaps even Google may be willing to snatch up various pieces of the company including BBM, enterprise assets and BlackBerry's extensive patents rather than buying the entire company. If that's the case, BlackBerry may end up actually getting more than expected as opposed to a solo deal. BlackBerry's patents could be worth about $1.6 billion and their enterprise services between $550 million to $1.1 billion.

“If you break up the company, you’re going to get more than the company is worth right now,” said Sachin Shah, a strategist in special situations and merger arbitrage at New York-based Albert Fried & Co.

[dr_wildman]

Goodnight 2nrs need some help with my blackberry 8520 when i plug it on to the computer and try upgrading it to the 5.0 os the phone crashes and the screen says error 507. What can i do to upgrade to the 5.0 os? Thanks

[jeevdude199]

buy an android that should work or
check the bb ched

[fouljuice]

Inside.

[gastly369]

http://bit.ly/16J0j6V

[Yodins]

I now get a wiped BB 8900 and I want to download fb, twitter, whatsapp etc but everytime I go to download them it saying "No cached credentials."

Help me.

[Allergic2BunnyEars]

I now get a wiped BB 8900 and I want to download fb, twitter, whatsapp etc but everytime I go to download them it saying "No cached credentials."

Help me.

Kill it with fire.

Seriously though I'm not sure if anyone will respond to this thread so will say the usual. Have you tried a battery pull? Do you have the latest version of the blackberry app world?

[Khafra]

I now get a wiped BB 8900 and I want to download fb, twitter, whatsapp etc but everytime I go to download them it saying "No cached credentials."

Help me.

Did you log in with your BlackBerry ID?

[javishm]

Inside.

[Yodins]

I now get a wiped BB 8900 and I want to download fb, twitter, whatsapp etc but everytime I go to download them it saying "No cached credentials."

Help me.

Kill it with fire.

Seriously though I'm not sure if anyone will respond to this thread so will say the usual. Have you tried a battery pull? Do you have the latest version of the blackberry app world?

Latest version just downloaded. What I have problems downloading is anything from the BB App World.

I now get a wiped BB 8900 and I want to download fb, twitter, whatsapp etc but everytime I go to download them it saying "No cached credentials."

Help me.

Did you log in with your BlackBerry ID?

googling how to do that now.

[stephengobin]

first you need to download bbsak and install it, connect your phone to your pc and open bbsak then click wipe device, then try opening back desktop manager and upgrade your phone, if that does not work pm me.

[~Vēġó~]

do like me and fling 'way he arse in the bamboo patch....

[tr1ad]

Well that's the problem right there....create a BB id

[keron123]

dan u need to hv d file on ur pc 5.0 os dload frm crackberry onçe it on d pc den u can use bbsk or desktop manger i can do it if u want

[solar_ice]

People still have blackberry?.....

[tr1ad]

Goodnight 2nrs need some help with my blackberry 8520 when i plug it on to the computer and try upgrading it to the 5.0 os the phone crashes and the screen says error 507. What can i do to upgrade to the 5.0 os? Thanks

put the OS on you machine first, then install

[S_2NR]

How much can I get for a 9320. Have one sitting here doing nothing. Good condition and everything.

[Allergic2BunnyEars]

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-cmo-ex ... ithin-days

BlackBerry CMO expects BBM to launch on Android and iOS 'within days'

"Earlier today it was revealed that BlackBerry will be heading to print media to clear up some of the headline misconceptions we've been hearing over the last few weeks. Part of the letter includes a note that cross-platform BBM is still very much a reality.

As the letter states:

We are bringing the most engaging mobile messaging platform to all, with our BBM launch for Android and iPhone.

There are already around six million customers pre-registered to be notified of our roll out. This number is growing every day, and speaks to the tremendous opportunity we have to expand BBM beyond BlackBerry smartphones to make it the world’s largest mobile social network.

In addition, BlackBerry CMO Frank Boulben spoke with Reuters and also added that he expects the launch of BBM "within days". He notes that the original issues have been sorted out so it's likely we'll see a release any day now. BBM was originally set to launch over three weeks ago but was pushed back due to various issues.

So once again - fingers crossed that cross-platform BBM isn't too far off. For real this time."

[MG Man]

lol
what is allyuh obsession with BBM?

[tr1ad]

lol
what is allyuh obsession with BBM?

dan... is to msg the empress an dem.... an yuh cud get nekkid pics too