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Lenovo Could Take Over RIM
judgecorp writes "China's Lenovo could take over RIM, according to Lenovo chief financial officer Wong Mai Ming, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. The Canadian authorities might object, and so might BlackBerry users, after what ultimately happened to the ThinkPad brand under Lenovo's guidance. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said, 'It’s something that we would look carefully at. We always look at foreign investment in Canada as a cause for reflection. We have to look at intelligence concerns.'"
after what ultimately happened to the ThinkPad brand under Lenovo's guidance
You mean, they would object if RIM devices kept working as before?
none
I always felt Rim was an unfortunate name now it looks like they may have to bend over :D
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
So what is alleged here that happened to the ThinkPad brand under Lenovo?
It seems to me ThinkPads continue to be solid laptops under Lenovo, as they were under IBM.
While there's been some backsliding on customer service -- IBM set an unequalled standard in this area -- the ThinkPads are still at the top of the class in the PC space. Since moving to Linux I've run only ThinkPads, which are solid and (except for their new ultrabook) easily user-upgradable. Even the help, when I've needed it, has been fine. The customer service issue I had was a very late delivery with poor communications from Lenovo while I was waiting for my most recent model (T430s).
After examining how the United States treats Huawei networking gear, I'm sure this would kill all the US (and State/Local) government contracts with RIM.
US Government contracts are one of the few highlights of RIM's business right now.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
You don't say "we may buy", "we could buy", "we could do...". You do it and your announce it later. Haven't learn anything from Léo Apotheker?
You are incorrect. RIM has positive cash flow, no debt, and significant capital assets and cash. RIM is far from dead and with their new offerings have continued opportunity to grow.
Another thing to consider - RIM is still has the only FIPS compliant smart phone on the market. That means that any government agency that needs to send "secret" data to remote agents will almost certainly use this device set.
The Blackberry devices have been a favorite among lawyers and government workers for a long time because they were inherently more secure than similar portable email/telephony devices. Considering the Chinese government's position on encrypted devices and communications I seriously doubt the Blackberry as we know it would continue to exist. And even if it did...would you trust it?
Does China have some sort of late-1990s nostalgia thing going on that I haven't heard of?
-- My Weblog.
The way I understand it is that while RIM is struggling in North America, they're still pretty dominant in the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is still a pretty big market.
I had a discussion at work with a mapping vendor. They were involved with discussions on mobile device support. From what he had seen, the survival of RIM to this point and beyond was related to the way they play ball with the government in regards to encryption compared to other companies. Apparently, Apple flat out said no.
I don't feel that Lenovo really changed anything too badly with the thinkpad line. Granted, I wouldn't buy a thinkpad edge, but the T series that I purchased works great. I've had it for over 2 years and the only problem I had was with a faulty shift key on my keyboard, which they resolved by sending out a new one for me to replace myself (much better IMHO than certain other vendors who would have asked me to send it to them).
I don't really see the difference between IBM thinkpad and Lenovo thinkpad as being significant.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Let's see, might China have an incentive to make some changes so they could listen in on all communications with BlackBerry phones in use by the US government?
Gosh, I suppose the might.
As BlackBerry is the only certified secure phone presently, having the company in the hands of a pretty much hostile trading partner might just be a bad idea for both US and Canada.
So what happened to Thinkpads after Lenovo purchased it?
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T430. I find it to be a very good laptop.
I have only 1 problem with it.
There are tons of programs it comes preinstalled with
- Evernote
- Intel AppUp(SM) center
- Intel WiDi
- Intel Control Center
- Intel Management Engine Components
- Intel OpenCL SDK
- ThinkVantage Communication Utlity
and lot more stuff. But I think lot of extra software shipped even when this was from IBM.
If someone could publish a list of stuff which could be uninstalled, it would be great.
Not if Lenovo buys it.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I think what concerns the educated public the most is RIM's lack of intelligence
Awww, you beat me to it!
Any business that's not totally dominate by a PHB should have by now at least started diversifying critical resources away from reliance on RIM.
Sadly true. And even more sadly...BB is the only device authorized for 'business' use for many companies in Canada. Is it because of too many PHB's, or too much IT inertia? I'm not sure. All I hear when I ask is that 'BB is the only secure platform', and they simply don't trust anyone else. That may have been true 10, or even 5 years ago, but now?
Anyhow, *picks up the popcorn*, let's sit back and enjoy the show! :)
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
If security depends on who owns the company (rather than baked into the device and supporting equipment), then it wasn't secure in the first place.
You can't trust anybody.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You are incorrect. RIM has positive cash flow, no debt, and significant capital assets and cash. RIM is far from dead and with their new offerings have continued opportunity to grow
I think your key word here is “opportunity”, because right now they are in a tail spin.
All of the keys stats you quote are declining in the past 2 years. They are selling fewer phones at a lower cost. Yes, they have secure phones. They could survive as a small niche player selling only to a select few – until somebody else decides to make one. Remember when Apple had 5% market share vs. WinTel? It struggled financially.
It doesn’t mean they can’t turn it around – but I can’t see an easy fix.
Huawei is an opaque company. We are not sure who owns. We know there is a relationship with the Chinese military but we are not sure exactly what it is.
Lenovo, on the other hand, operators much more like a standard international company that just happens to be located in China. It has offices, engineers and factors in the US. I would assume a good chunk of RIMs offices would remain in Canada.
In short, it would be easier to establish that security was being done right with Lenovo then Huawei. I have concerns about China – let’s just make sure our fears or rational.
I don't think RIM needs to be rescued and as you can see, RIM have no comment on this "news". It is probably another attempt orchestrated by Apple, Google, and the gang to sink RIM. Obviously, if RIM is to become a Chinese company then the US should consider staying away RIM devices and services due to potential national security issues. Just FUD, is what it is.
RIM has positive cash flow, no debt, and significant capital assets and cash
RIM has had an operating loss for the last 4 straight quarters. While you are correct that the company isn't on financial life support (yet), their prospects are not looking especially cheery. Their cash hoard is around $3 billion which while substantial is tiny compared to Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung. All their major competitors have extremely strong balance sheets, far stronger than RIM. It's a bit like playing poker when everyone at the table has a much larger pile of chips. You still can win but the odds are not in your favor.
RIM is far from dead and with their new offerings have continued opportunity to grow.
The sales numbers for RIM's products are do not back you up. Competing products from Apple and Android makers are in far higher demand. RIM's product line is pretty widely considered to be not competitive. While RIM might succeed yet with some brilliant new products, there is little evidence so far that we should expect anything that will put them ahead of the curve.
Another thing to consider - RIM is still has the only FIPS compliant smart phone on the market.
Which is something that the majority of the market could not care less about. At best it gives them some breathing room for a little while. But the number of people who really need that level of security is a pretty small fraction of the overall market. RIM needs a product offering with much broader appeal and significant advantages over the competition. Right now this is a battle they are losing and losing badly.
Since when does “We are looking at all opportunities -- RIM and many others,” automatically translate into "We are taking over RIM"? Seeing how countries are treating ZTE and Huawei in the network space Lenovo would be crazy to buy RIM (Everyone knows RIM has a global network infrastructure right?). It does however make a lot of sense to partner with them to offer devices outside of RIM's current core.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The way I understand it is that while RIM is struggling in North America, they're still pretty dominant in the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is still a pretty big market.
I think you need to look at real numbers instead of antedotes... RIM is struggling nearly everywhere...
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20121128_RIM.pdf
Here's a smattering of numbers for new phone sales (for Oct 2011 -> Oct 2012) those that don't want to read the link....
USA: 8.5% -> 1.6% (expected)
UK: 19% -> 7.9%
France: 16% -> 7%
Spain: 23.7% -> 3.4%
Brazil: 8.7% -> 2.7%
Only in germany they increased share from 1.6% to 2.5%
Even if their installed base is large (which it isn't 80M active users vs 1B smartphones total), I don't think any of these numbers can be considered "dominant".
Maybe, but the US State Department banned Lenovo computers from being used for Classified work back in 2006.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/state-dpartment-bans-lenovo-pcs-from-classified-work/
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
I know RIM will give the government its encryption keys at the drop of a hat, but I figure Apple'd do the same too. Unless Apple was actually refusing to not give it to the U.S. government at the drop of a hat.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
It seems to me that if Lenovo goes through with this, they're going to get burned. I don't think many businesses would trust China not to peek into the data going through those Black Berrys and the devices will be dropped like hot potatoes. If Lenovo's strategy is about getting their hands on patents, then that may be an acceptable consequence to them.
Hmmmm.....intelligence concerns......
The party that sells out citizens info to foreign powers at every turn,
or worse loses everyones data on a portable hard disk, or just looks the other way
while personal information is bled and leaked from government databases by
public employees (ex, bored, or otherwise).
I think I'll just move to China. It's safer.
I can hear thousands of corporate and government accounts bailing when China and by definition the Chinese government and army get their hand on all the secure data and transmissions that RIM has. BB's are in fact the only handset allowed in many US Federal agencies because of the security. Not anymore.
I just cleaned up a new Gateway laptop. The amount of pre-installed stuff I wasn't interested in is comparable to what was on a ThinkPad I setup last week. From the Gateway, I removed:
Adobe Air
Bing Bar
E-Bay Worldwide
Evernote
Foozkids
Foozkids Platform
Gateway Games
Gateway MyBackup
Gateway Registration
Gateway Recovery Management
Gateway ScreenSaver
Gateway Updater
Identity Card
Kobo
Microsoft Silverlight
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
Nero DiscSpeed 10
Nero SmartStart 10
Nero Update
Norton Internet Security
Norton Online Backup
Skype
Welcome Centre
Windows Live Essentials
I also change the branded home page in Internet Explorer, and disable or remove all the browser add-ons I don't want, including "accelerators" such as "Map with Bing", "Translate with Bing", etc. After all that, there are still programs starting up automatically that I don't want, which I disable using "msconfig". And we haven't even mentioned the numerous services running that may not be required. (A good guide to disabling services can be found here).
I often tell people that buying a new computer these days is like buying a new car that comes with 500 lbs. of sand in the trunk.
If you have your own BES, RIM absolutely does not have your encryption keys, and therefore cannot hand them over to anyone. In that situation RIM can't read your email, period.
Spoiler: I work for RIM.
- chrish