Today I had a read through a report from Gus Papageorgiou from Scotiabank. On the back of the announcement of a special committee to explore strategic alternatives, he raised his target price on the stock. His new target is $14.20, up from $12.50 previously. In his report, he comments on the higher probability of a sale of the company or a strategic partnership versus a going private...
It has been over one year since BlackBerry hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital Markets to help it explore strategic alternatives such as finding a partner or licensing the BB10 operating system. What happened during that time? I’m not sure. As far as I can tell nothing has happened, except both investment banks have likely been paid nice fees for being on the assignment. Was this strategic...
Late last night, Reuters published a story suggesting that BlackBerry’s board of directors may actually be opening up to the idea of going private. So in good CrackBerry form, I thought I should write up something that explains what it means and how it might change things for the company if it happens. Let me start by saying this: I don’t think BlackBerry is going private anytime soon...
Last night we got wind that the cross platform mobile instant messaging leader, WhatsApp, has been rolling push to talk (PTT) into the application. Bla1ze already gave you a quick rundown on this news. The comments have been pretty harsh, which isn’t surprising considering this is an enthusiast site, and you all know BBM is going cross platform soon. We all get that WhatsApp, while it...
Ever since Thorsten Heins took over as the CEO of BlackBerry, there have been two big stated goals. The first was to make a comeback in smartphones, on the back of BlackBerry 10. The second was to be a clear leader in mobile computing, not just smartphones. Mobile computing includes machine to machine (M2M) communication. The BlackBerry 10 smartphone comeback is something the company is...
Is launching BBM cross platform on iOS and Android BlackBerry's "Hail Mary" pass to rebuilding brand awareness in the USA? CrackBerry's in house industry analyst Chris Umiastowski thinks so!
Yesterday in the CrackBerry Forums, a member asked me to comment on the possible value of BBM, presumably as a standalone asset that BlackBerry can monetize on its own. BBM is a mobile-only app with many purposes. First and foremost it’s an IM app, and arguably the best mobile IM app on the market. But it’s now also a video chat and voice chat app. And depending on what else BlackBerry...
This morning Nokia reported its financial results for the June quarter. Overall, Nokia is hanging in there. The company is seeing much stronger results from its ownership in Nokia Siemens Networks, while the business of making phones has not yet returned to profitability. As far as Lumia goes, Nokia managed to sell 7.4 million of these Windows-based smartphones compared to 5.6 million...
Yesterday we saw that the very popular cross-platform mobile IM app WhatsAppupdated its pricing model for the iPhone. What was once a $0.99 download is now a free download. But it’s only free for the first year, after which the subscription to keep using it costs $0.99 per year. Is this a good change for WhatsApp? And what does it mean for BlackBerry’s potential to gain customers on...
Over the last week there has been quite a bit of chatter about price cuts happening on the Z10. To recap what’s happening here, both AT&T and Verizon have lowered the 2-year contract price of the phone to $99 while some retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy have dropped the price to $49. There are a few things worth pointing out here. First of all, it’s very normal for the big...
Earlier this week independent analyst Ed Zabitsky of ACI Research launched coverage of BlackBerry. He has a strong buy rating on the stock and a $20 target price. It’s worth pointing out that Zabitsky is not your typical analyst. Not only because he runs his own firm and doesn’t do any trading or investment banking for clients. But also because he picks stocks almost exclusively based...
Today in Waterloo, BlackBerry’s CEO presented a message that I feel was very consistent with everything they’ve been saying to date. While this may not have helped the stock much (it’s up marginally today), I think it’s at least positive to see the consistency. Specifically, there are a lot of people who feel that BlackBerry should get out of hardware, or that BlackBerry should put...
Friday was pretty depressing for anyone who has been in the bull camp on BlackBerry stock. We were disappointed with financial results that included only 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices shipped. But the silver lining was the obvious revenue growth they’re starting to see. In case you forgot, or never noticed, revenue for the most recent quarter was $3.1 billion, up from $2.7 billion...
Following BlackBerry's first quarter fiscal 2014 earnings report and investor call, CrackBerry's in-house analyst Chris Umiastowski weighs in
As we work towards the BlackBerry earnings release this Friday I’ve been following the analyst preview comments and giving you the summary versions here on CrackBerry. This morning Gus Papageorgiou from Scotiabank published his thoughts. I like reading Gus’ reports because he is not afraid to stand out from the crowd. But at the same time he puts good thought into the justification for...
When I was a kid my dad bought me a toy Walkie Talkie set. They were always a blast to play with. The technology seemed so amazing back then. Fast forward a decade or so and I’d see people in coffee shops or around construction sites. They would be using push to talk (PTT) based on iDEN technology. I’m sure many of you remember Nextel in the US, or the Mike network in Canada, which was...
If a Tesla Model S electric car can get a 50% battery recharge in 20 minutes at a supercharging station ... shouldn’t it be possible to do the same on a BlackBerry? That’s what I’d like to discuss here. Over the last few months I’ve developed what my wife lovingly refers to as unhealthy obsession with Tesla Motors and their Model S electric car. You know the one, right? It starts at...
As I mentioned last week, BlackBerry’s earnings report is coming up on June 28th so we’re into what we call “earnings preview” season where analysts pump out reports highlighting expectations for conference call and financial results due out soon. We’ve recently seen upgrades from both SocGen and Wells Fargo. This week we’ve seen one well known BlackBerry bear cut his estimates and...
After drifting lower for most of this week, BlackBerry shares got a nice boost in the last two trading days thanks to two analyst upgrades. For those keeping track, the stock is now hovering around $14.50, which is about a buck higher than Wednesday’s close. French investment bank Société Générale upgraded BlackBerry from a sell to a buy rating on Thursday morning. The analyst at SocGen...
When I watched the unveiling of iOS7 in yesterday’s live stream of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference I couldn’t help but notice that some of the new gestures seemed to be strikingly similar to those in BlackBerry 10. It’s easy to make a case that Apple’s latest mobile OS heavily borrows from the best of BlackBerry. But none of that matters. The average iPhone customer doesn’t...