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RIM May Need To Write Off $1 Billion In Inventory
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."
It'll be a sad day if RIM ever dies. But they can easily stay afloat by catering to their niche: enterprise. Because we all know Apple has never, and never will care about enterprise customers. And google's fragmentation and missing enterprise security features don't cut it.
Companies can still succeed by catering to a certain niche. You don't see people bitching that LinkedIn is dying because FB is the king. LinkedIn is doing fine. Or the perfect scenario. Apple makes a ton of money, yet OSX only has 10% market share. RIM just decided to take on Apple and the crowd that needs to play the piano on their smartphone. And the two don't mix. And they didn't understand until too late what showy snotty d-bags go with and want (read: piano apps). So they lost.