iPhone launched by Apple; BlackBerry stock surges $34 per share
In one of those timely conundrums that makes absolutely no sense on the surface, Apple’s chief wireless rival and market leader Research In Motion saw a very sharp upswing of spark lines for their stock charts yesterday, closing just shy of the $200.00 milestone. This is the largest single-day earnings in the Waterloo-based company’s history. For some reason, RIM decided to have their first quarter earnings call on the launch day of the Apple iPhone, and boy did it pay dividends (literally), especially when company Co-CEO shared some great news with investors – a 3-for-1 split for common stock, their second split in three years!
Regardless, from my point of view of being on the outside looking in at the iPhone craze (at least until Monday), I find this financial windfall about my favorite company in the entire world (aside from my own, of course) QUITE ironic in light of the iPhone being dubbed as THE BlackBerry ‘Killer’ (yes, another one). Welcome to the Big Leagues, Apple.
“Talk is cheap, stock are better”
I can’t figure out how to use my iPhone — heelllppp!!! Frustrated in NY
http://tinyurl.com/2r7cu4
It’s here already!!! The iPhone and at great prices!!
the jump in rimm enabled me to afford abour 450 iphones with only about $6k starting capital, nonetheless, im still sticking with my curve
Smartphones are awesome!
As said by Jim Basille (RIM CEO I think) himself, the publicity that apple generates will only help the pda market. I see what he means now, more publicity = more sales.
I like how they refer to the iphone as the “blackberry killer” when the iphone is nothing but an ipod with a phone.
It does nothing a smartphone is supposed to do. No 3rd party apps. No push email. Not very smart to me.
Way to go RIM!
Oh, if only I had bought RIM stock when it was $40.00 a share, or even when it was $60.00 a share. SIGH
who called the iphone a “blackberry killer”?
I never saw anyone refer to that before jibi.
erica, i would say it does everything a pda is supposed to do, a smartphone is not the same.
everyone gets so defensive about comparisons, who cares.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22blackberry+killer%22+iphone
Go there and look for some points. It’s been referred to that since it was first known about, and only recently has it not been referred to it by some news articles. Any new smartphone device that looks promising (and usually ends up falling quite short, a la Q) is referred to as a ‘BlackBerry Killer’. It’s become a common joke within the BlackBerry community, to be honest.
Lets be honest here, I am a long time BB user and its a great email device but it also has its problems.
Its a lousy phone and the web experience is a joke. Its some what cumbersome to use and there is an awful lot of scrolling required.
Regarding 3rd party apps, I totally agree with Apple’s decision not to open the phone up right away. Their is no rush to make that decision and to make sure the product is solid and can be supported properly it makes total sense. Also I have a number of apps on my BB and it drives me nuts they all work differently. Not all of them use the BB keys properly and the user experience leaves a LOT to be desired. So more is not necessarily better.
The BB’s claim to fame is their push email with MS Exchange and the ability to manage a large number of handheld devices.
So from and IT perspective its a dream but from a user perspective it’s a long way from where it needs to be.
Regardless of what PDA or smartphone you currently use the iPhone has already changed the cell phone industry. No it’s not for everyone, no it’s not the perfect device but this has raised the bar on expectations of what a handheld computer can offer.
From a market perspective RIM will do just fine in the IT space but the iPhone could effect their efforts into the consumer market. Microsoft is the biggest loser because Mobile Windows is a dogg and once again it shows how little innovation they really provide.
Jibi, half of those are saying “not” a bb killer and the rest are blogs that are not even as good as this one. I think honestly that no Real journalist would make that claim.
I think all the touch tech is good for the pda market and will only push for better devices.
I like my BB but I dont like:
no HTML email, hate the browsing experience, media player is like a simple app from 1995. Its really good at email but thats all i would give it.
It’s funny how the platform with the MOST 3rd party app support (Palm), is currently hurting the most financially !
RIMM is still undervalued (IMHO) when you consider the massive open ended potential WORLDWIDE. There are currently 3 billion mobile phone users (going to 4 billion in a few years)…RIMM has just 9.3 million subs (mostly professional as of now). The consumer models are just now getting off the ground but are gaining significant momentum (Pearl &
Curve). There are 2-3 more models coming before year end. Don’t think of 50-60 year olds…think young. Young people want their email, web, pics, music and camera on their mobile phone. RIMM is the leader and
has a cool factor (unlike Palm). They also have the best service and better price points (compared to iPhone although they are going to do well too). I think they could triple their biz in the next 3 years…if that happens, they would still have less than 1% of all
mobile phone users. The trend toward “smart phones” is like the switch from TV with rabbit ears and 3 choices to Cable with 100 choices.
I think RIM better watch their back. For instance, I had a BB Pearl and got an iPhone on Friday. When I was in the iPhone line, I wanted to snap a few pics to send to my Flickr account. To send multiple attached pics on a BB, you bring up a new message, then go to “Add attachments.” The resulting list of pictures shows you the names (i.e. IMG000423.jpg) and the file sizes. These are the only completely useless pieces of info about the images. Show me a preview or at least the time/date it was taken! So then you have to go to the media viewer, scroll to the images you want (waiting as it rebuilds the thumbnail every single time) and memorize the filenames so you can pick them out in the email attachments menu. Insane! Watch how you email a pic on the iPhone and you’ll see that this is a game changer for consumer phones anyway.
I think you may have proved the point that the iPhone is not a BB-killer, while trying to insult BB at the same time.
The two phones fall under different types of users, with the occasional overlap in the “all-in-one” user who wants to try and do it all with your phone. The fact that it’s hard to attach images taken with your camera to a message in a BB just shows you that you’re venturing outside of what the core BB business is (enterprise handset management and push email). Now if you said that the iPhone sucked at that as well…then it would be another story.
Cheers!
BB is a biz tool.
iPhone is a fancy toy phone.
The difference is easy to see. It’s an add-on bonus to have BB on consumer side, taking some market share.
It just seems that RIM’s trying to move more into the consumer space with their recent models. I guess what I was trying to say was that they have a long way to go and my little anecdote shows that, while the Pearl CAN do some of the things the iPhone can do, it just gets killed in the interface. Anyway, the marketplace will sort it out!
RIM’s only leg up right now is their push technology and tight integration with Exchange.
But not only do they have Apple coming at them on the consumer side but Microsoft wants to own that mobile exchange client so they have tough competition on both fronts.
i am a loyal bb fan anyways…
iPhone has fantastic UI. I used three generation mac os x… basically they ported it to the cell phone (mini-computer + phone?). Well done! Let’s wait for a while to see how this iPhone proves itself, if it can become next iPod (rules mp3 world) or next iMac (fantastic product, but still lose to PC)…
To me, real competition is WM6. Well, it is always good to have both WM and BB to go head to head. Fun to watch. We can get best of both.