Microsoft said nobody will ever spend 500$ for a mobile phone. Nokia praised it and in the meanwhile started releasing similar phones. Motorola, while shitting bricks, welcomed the iPhone as a market booster. The iPhone is, in the mobile phones market, what Facebook is for the internet social networking.
Now that I’ve talked about the iPhone and Facebook and hopefully driven a few more visitors to this blog with the hottest terms on the net I can move on to the main subject, which is somehow related to the iPhone. Research in Motion has been strangely quiet during the squabble prior to the iPhone launch.
If you ask me, that was the right thing to do. iPhoning is just not its business, RIM’s business is pushing your corporate emails to a stupidly over-sized phone. There’s no point in fighting with Apple over who’s got the best/coolest phone, it’s a lost battle and they know it.
I doubt the iPhone is going to eat off RIM’s plate anyway, they’re two completely different devices, and people love Blackberries, I’ve got one (the Pearl), and I’m incredibly happy with it, Fred Wilson keeps declaring his undying love for the Blackberry on his blog. RIM will stick to its corporate clientele and I believe it’s going to be a rather safe place given all the doubts and security issues people have raised over the use of Apple’s product in a corporate environment.
RIM has finally reached China after years of haggling with the government. The Register and Yahoo news report this morning:
The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry has given permission for BlackBerry to start selling its addictive email devices in China.
And things seem to be looking bright for them.
Research In Motion (RIM), BlackBerry’s parent company, has already received 5,000 pre-orders for the device, according to Canada’s Globe and Mail. Many pre-orders came from multinationals with Chinese offices. The paper said RIM is also considering manufacturing the devices in China.
This stock has touched what I thought was an all time high just a few days ago, but this is gamechanging news. Now that it has access to one of the biggest (and fastest growing) markets on the planet I think it’ll reach for new skies. Furthermore with a pricetag of 2xx dollars I see/hope to see a split in the near future, which always helps.
I wanted this to be a post about RIM and the Blackberry, seems I can’t stop talking about the iPhone, no matter what you say to me today my answer is going to be either “Yes, but what does that have to do with the iPhone?” or “No, but what does that have to do with the Facebook?”
P.S. My Covestor widget is still empty because the transaction just came through and performance data will start appearing tomorrow!
German Optelcom-NKF is my latest investment, and for change, I finally made the right decision at the right time.
