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BlackBerry Reports Surprise Q4 Profit

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Thursday March 28, 2013 @ 8:17am PDTTags: BlackBerry

Shares in BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion, bounced around this morning, opening up at $15.55 before dropping back down to $14.76 and, as of about 11 AM Eastern time, were back on the climb. The bobbing came after the phone-maker reported a surprise Q4 profit. For the three months ended March 2, the company logged a net income of $98M while analysts had been expecting a loss. Revenue, however, was down to $2.678B, about 2% off the last quarter and 36% off the comparable quarter in 2012. The company also shed about 3M subscribers and now has a base of approximately 76M. Blackberry said it shipped 1M of its new BlackBerry 10 units — the 10 operating system was introduced in January on two devices, the Z10 and Q10 –  and moved 6M smartphones overall. Analyst Brian Colello told Reuters “The 1 million units is a nice start… I think the encouraging thing is that BlackBerry was still able to sell a good portion of older models and generate solid service revenue during the transition. I think that will be important in terms of cash balance and profitability.” READ MORE »

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Deadline Big Media With David Lieberman, Episode 21

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday February 1, 2013 @ 3:29pm PSTTags: BlackBerry, Deadline Big Media, Mark Cuban, News Corp

Listen to episode 21 of our audio podcast Deadline Big Media With David Lieberman. This week Deadline Executive Editor Lieberman and host David Bloom discuss the red hot News Corp. stock, Moody’s moody take on the theatrical exhibition business, Mark Cuban‘s on the future of TV, and Blackberry‘s effort to ensure it has a future.

Deadline Big Media Episode 21 (MP3 format)
Deadline Big Media Episode 21 (MP4A format) Read More »

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Research In Motion Changes Company Name To BlackBerry As It Unveils BlackBerry 10

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday January 30, 2013 @ 7:31am PSTTags: BlackBerry, Research In Motion

The company formerly known as Research In Motion says its product line is “re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented” with the introduction today of the BlackBerry 10 operating system and two devices: the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10. The goal is to make it easy for users to switch between work and personal applications with separate home screens. The Z10 has a 4.2-inch, high-definition touchscreen, while the Q10 has a smaller screen and a physical keyboard. They’ll come with 16 GB of memory, and a slot for a memory card. The back opens, so users can replace the battery. The company says they offer simple ways to launch video chats with multiple applications open. A Screen Share application makes it possible for another user to take charge of the screen. Users can focus the camera via touch screen commands, and manipulate images with a built-in picture editor. The Story Maker application can create videos with music and images edited in. The company says it has more than 1,000 BlackBerry 10 apps including Skype, Amazon Kindle, SAP, Angry Birds, Facebook, Twitter, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and TuneIn. All of the major studios and music companies will offer content on BlackBerry World. The phones are expected to be available in the U.S. by March, and while carriers will determine pricing CEO Thorsten Heins said it likely will be $150 with a three-year contract. He says that musician Alicia Keys will serve as BlackBerry’s creative director. “I broke with you for something with a little more bling,” she said at the rollout event. “Now we’re exclusively dating again.” She says she’ll work with app designers and retailers, and people in entertainment and music, to help bridge the gap between a work phone and a play phone.

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UPDATE: Research In Motion Shares Fall On Spending Fears For Blackberry 10

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday December 21, 2012 @ 6:45am PSTTags: BlackBerry, Research In Motion

UPDATE, Friday, 6:45 AM: Looks like Research In Motion execs’ vague comments last night about their plans for the new Blackberry 10 system quashed investors’ initially warm feelings about the better-than-expected Q3 results. RIM’s stock price dropped nearly 17% shortly after the market opened on Friday. The company warned that it will increase its spending to promote the long-awaited update to the Blackberry platform in late January. CEO Thorsten Heins also said in a conference call that there’ll be new tiered service offerings, but offered no details. He told CNBC this morning that the transition to BlackBerry 10 “is going to be probably one-and-a-half to two years.”  Read More »

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BlackBerry Hit With Outages On First Day Of iPhone 5 Sales

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday September 21, 2012 @ 12:18pm PDTTags: BlackBerry, iPhone 5, Research In Motion

Talk about lousy timing. Shares in Research In Motion are down 6.5% this afternoon after it reported that BlackBerry users in much of Europe and Africa lost their Internet and email services for as long as three hours. The problem … Read More »

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Microsoft Deal Could Enhance BlackBerry Phones’ Video And File Sharing Power

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday September 18, 2012 @ 9:53am PDTTags: BlackBerry, microsoft, Research In Motion

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) can use some encouraging news as it loses market share to Apple, Android, and Windows-powered smartphones, and today’s patent licensing deal with Microsoft seems to provide some. The software giant gave RIM the right to use its Extended File Allocation Table that the companies say will make it easier for some BlackBerry devices to transfer “large files for audiovisual media” and facilitate data exchanges between PCs and other devices. The system, called “exFAT,” enables flash memory devices to handle five times more data than they could under Microsoft’s previous “FAT” protocol. “Today’s smartphones and tablets require the capacity to display richer images and data than traditional cellular phones,” Microsoft’s GM of Intellectual Property Licensing David Kaefer says. “This agreement with RIM highlights how a modern file system, such as exFAT can help directly address the specific needs of customers in the mobile industry.” RIM shares popped more than 3% after the mid-day announcement, but retreated shortly afterward to about +2%. Read More »

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Research In Motion CEO Denies That The Blackberry Maker Is In A “Death Spiral”

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday July 3, 2012 @ 8:53am PDTTags: BlackBerry, Research In Motion

I can just imagine the PR people at Research in Motion wincing today when CEO Thorsten Heins made this comment in an interview in Canada on CBC News’ Metro Morning. “There’s nothing wrong with the company as it exists … Read More »

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Blackberry-Maker Research In Motion Reports Startling Loss In Fiscal Q1

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday June 28, 2012 @ 1:53pm PDTTags: BlackBerry, Research In Motion

UPDATED: Bad news for Blackberry owners. The company behind the popular smartphone just reported disastrous earnings for the quarter that ended June 2 — sending shares plummeting about 16% in after-hours trading. RIM had a net … Read More »

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Research In Motion Lays Egg With Effort To Mollify BlackBerry Users After Outage

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday October 17, 2011 @ 2:34pm PDTTags: Apple, BlackBerry, iPhone, Research In Motion

You can see this from the 6.6% drop in Research in Motion’s stock price today — and the mostly hostile comments over at our sister site, BGR.com. Instead of giving a rebate to millions of people affected by last week’s switching problems, RIM said today that it will let them download a dozen premium games and apps that it values at more than $100, and have a month of free Technical Support. “We are grateful to our loyal BlackBerry customers for their patience,” co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said. “We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.” Read More »

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RIM’s BlackBerry Outages Hit Hollywood

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday October 12, 2011 @ 12:24pm PDTTags: BlackBerry, Research In Motion

Well, this is going to make getting a hold of an agent this much tougher around Hollywood: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has been posting updates on its U.S. site since Monday, when service outages were reported in Europe, … Read More »

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