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RIM May Need To Write Off $1 Billion In Inventory

Posted by Soulskill on from the build-a-fort-out-of-blackberrys dept.

benfrog writes "Blackberry maker Research in Motion may need to write off more than $1 billion in inventory, according to Bloomberg. The potential 'writedown' comes after RIM took a $485 million pretax charge to write down the value of its PlayBook inventory in December. RIM has said it aims to save $1 billion in operating costs this fiscal year by cutting its number of manufacturing sites and is 'reviewing its organizational efficiency' across the company, which may lead to job cuts of 2,000-3,000. Its shares have tumbled 75 percent over the past year and are down 90 percent from their all-time high."

10 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Not Surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've used all 3 major platforms professionally, and BB is so far behind now it's just pitiful. Remove the Federal workforce from the client base, and BB is a memory.

    1. Re:Not Surprising by norfolkboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not quite.

      It's very popular in the UK for teens, who use BBM rather than SMS.

      Other than poor chavs and kids, you're right.

    2. Re:Not Surprising by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here in the Netherlands (and as I understand it, most of Europe atleast), WhatsApp is the current chat method, and it's available on most mobile platforms, including BB. It's still proprietary, but atleast it's practically platform agnostic.

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    3. Re:Not Surprising by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well maybe we'll get lucky and they'll be dumping playbooks on Woot! like HP did the Touchpads, gotta look on the bright side you know.

      But RIM really deserves what is happening to them, another classic case of a company that tried to rest on their laurels instead of staying ahead of the game and now they are so far behind its practically impossible to get back on top. You might bet by with that in some businesses but tech is NOT one of those. We have seen it over and over again, Palm, MSFT with WinCE, if you don't try to stay ahead of the pack in mobile tech you simply get run over.

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    4. Re:Not Surprising by snowraver1 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Firstly, I like RIM. I currently have a 3 year old Blackberry Tour that still works fine. It's battery still lasts for days depsite it's age. The apps are pretty crappy, yes, but that's okay for me. It workes great as a communication device, which it is.

      I also recently bought a playbook (6 months ago), and it is really great! At $200 I don't understand why everyone doesn't have one. It is really a great peice of hardware, and the QNX OS is really good. In 6 months, I have had numerous application level crashes, but only one OS crash. I think that's pretty good.

      I'm really looking forward to the new selection of BB phones that actually run QNX. I just hope blackberry is still in business by then... If you haven't tried a playbook yet, try one. It's 1/3 the price of an iPad and it's really great!

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  2. HP should buy them by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    HP is convinced they need to embrace the 'post-PC' world. They could actually salvage part of their 2 billion investment of Palm and Web OS. BB has a terrible platform right now and is dying, but they have a great brand name, and some great apps. Their mobile email client is absolutely the best.

    If HP was smart, they'd reach out to Google to help develop Android phones and tablets with some Web OS influence (some great UI concepts actually) and a BB email client. Honestly, wouldn't that be a legit Apple killer than enterprise shops would embrace en-masse?

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  3. What's With All The RIM Hate? by MogNuts · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can only conclude that basically companies are just planting RIM hate and RIM apocalypse stories. I see them all the time. But yet if you actually used a Blackberry, as a smartphone (and not an App machine) it's pretty damn good. But yet we see it day after day all these RIM hate stories. Besides, why would you want, as a consumer, one less competitor in the field. Because all that means is the remaining ones will compete less, charge more, and give you less features.

    Don't believe the hype planted by companies and their collaboraters in the media. Forget all the rest of the crap--if it's a good phone and you like it, buy it. And even though I use an Android phone now, I absolutely LOVED my two old BB's (old BB and that BB Bold 9700).

    1. Re:What's With All The RIM Hate? by MadCow42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      RUFKM?

      Do you even have a current BB phone? I do, and I hate it with a passion, but I'm stuck with it because it's all my company supports for corporate email.

      Battery life? half a day if I'm lucky.

      Usability? It freezes for minutes at a time.

      Apps? Really? Have you compared to any other platform like Android or iOS?

      Talk about astroturfing... you're doing it pretty well.

      (no, I have no affiliation with RIM whatsoever, besides being hampered by having one of their crappy devices - the 9960)

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    2. Re:What's With All The RIM Hate? by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't hate RIM. But I do think RIM is dying. The disease is reversible, I think, but nobody over there seems to be seriously looking for a cure. TFS says RIM stock is down 75 percent from last year alone. Imagine a patient who has lost 75 percent of his body weight but keeps insisting, "I'm not sick!"

      My own experience: My last three phones before my current one were BlackBerrys. But I started looking around and comparing prices and it seemed to me that other phones could provide at least most of the functionality that my BlackBerry gave me, plus more besides. I also wasn't impressed with the hardware of the current crop of BlackBerry devices. It seemed like RIM's focus had drifted from its core business market and it was trying to sell camera phones to college students. They didn't seem like they were targeting me anymore, and other manufacturers were. So I switched to Android.

      I'd be more than happy to switch back to BlackBerry if they'd show me a really great phone, though. Do they have something like that in the works? I don't see it. The market doesn't seem to see it, either.

      You know who you remind me of? Me, when I was a Mac OS admin in the late 90s. Back then, everybody thought Mac users were a cult. We were all convinced our platform was the best, but everybody else kept focusing on how Gil Amelio had fucked up a once-great company. We Mac fans were right, but so was everybody else. It took Steve Jobs' return to get Apple back on track. Unfortunately, I don't think RIM has a Steve Jobs.

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  4. TERRIBLE writeup by Scareduck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From TFA:

    The value of the company’s inventory climbed to $1.03 billion last quarter, up from $618 million a year earlier. Back in mid-2008, when the BlackBerry was still a hot seller and RIM’s stock traded at an all-time high of $147.55, the figure was less than $500 million.

    Nowhere in that article does it suggest that 100% of the current inventory will have to be written off. A terrible writeup from someone who clearly has reading comprehension problems.

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