A year ago, RIM appointed a new CEO, Thorsten Heins, and I wrote a post ‘RIM needs a seismic change’. It appeared to me that Heins did not understand the size of the problem RIM faced. As a long term Blackberry user I was one of the 80m users who still cared. A number that has since declined to 70m.
RIM shares had already slumped 80% in the year to Jan 12 to c$16 and were to hit a low of $6.41 in Sept 12. By then Heins did seem to be both listening and acting. The release of Blackberry 10 is now a couple of weeks away and a physical keyboard will be one of the options. Early reviews are surprisingly good. Results announced in Sept were really rather encouraging too with, against the odds, an extra 2m subscribers added and $100m cash generated. Indeed, as I declared at the time (See Can Blackberry rise from the dead?), I decided to buy at c$7. It has proven to be the best performer in the Holway Portfolio since with a 125% rise.
So it will be interesting to see what the markets make of Heins’ comments in Die Welt this weekend (well, Heins is German!) when they open again on Tuesday.
Heins said he, obviously, wanted to see how the Blackberry 10 launch went but then "There are several possibilities, which include the sale of hardware production as well as licensing our software. But there's no reason for us to make any rushed decisions."
"The company has become leaner, which means we've reduced costs. Decisions are being made more quickly and responsibilities have been redistributed. We're still in the middle of this process. We've even increased liquidity, even though people were predicting we'd be burning money. We're free of debt and have $2.9bn in cash at our disposal."
So Heins is following the advice we gave back in that post in Jan 12. He’s made a bold move to make Blackberry relevant again AND he has said that, if that works, he’s ready to look to sell all or parts of the company. Of course, the more Blackberry 10 succeeds the higher the price would be.
Either way, must admit to be being a happy bunny right now