When Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) announced its very weak earnings report last week, it was a shock to many investors although certainly not all of them. Short interest in the company was at a record high heading into that earnings report, which left more questions rather than answers.
Does Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Have Something To Hide?
Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) did not disclose how many of the units shipped were actually BlackBerry 10 units and how many were BlackBerry 7 units. We also don’t know any of the sell-through numbers for either sets of devices. This signals to many investors that Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has something to hide, at least in terms of the number of BlackBerry 10 units it is shipping.
The Street’s Richard Saintvilus believes that the only way BlackBerry will be able to move forward and possibly regain some of the market share it has loss is by dramatically increasing its marketing spending. This will likely be a big problem for a company that has already blown through a massive marketing budget ahead of the release of its BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 handsets, and he doesn’t believe that anything the company will do can right the sinking ship at this point.
Why BlackBerry Enterprise System Won’t Be Enough
The one thing that has kept Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) over the past few years has been BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Unfortunately though, it appears as if many corporations are just shutting it down rather than upgrading it to Blackberry 10. The company began offering its Secure Work Space as an attempt to support competing devices on BES, but it may be too little too late. Competing platforms offer more flexibility and are less expensive because they all work on one system, unlike BES, which must be separate.
So is there any hope left for BlackBerry investors? Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it at this point, although anything’s possible. The company’s next earnings report will be especially crucial, particularly because that will be the first one to include results from the QWERTY keyboard BlackBerry Q10 handset, which some analysts have said is doing better than the Z10 touchscreen version.
