[lcjr]

That's a good point Peter. I'd personally be afraid of somebody gaining access to one of our vehicles from some computer someplace and do something that causes an accident.

Sent from my Note 3

[fedakd]

Some interesting comments from Sculley, after the fact. Still interested in looking at BlackBerry should it ever be put up for sale again... I also found the bolded part in the quotes below VERY interesting. I feel that BlackBerry was not forthcoming to the media or its shareholders in any way re: the sale process. The media reports it as a failed sale / disaster, yet we are now hearing that "if the auction had proceeded" Sculley and other institutions were "enthusiastic" at the strategies. At the risk of sounding like Mr. Freetruth, this is the exact opposite of what's been reported in the media.

"Our interest in [considering a bid for] BlackBerry was that, while we already have a major relationship with AT&T and a relationship with BlackBerry, we were intrigued by the 675 wireless carriers that BlackBerry has relationships with through the BES organization around the world," he said.

"We said, 'Gee, if we were to put those businesses together, we could dramatically scale the expansion of our OpenPeak technology and it would create a very valuable business, we felt," Sculley told UPI.

"We also felt the device business needed to be uncoupled from the BES business," he said. "So that's where our strategy would be different than what John Chen is doing."

In his exploration of a BlackBerry bid, Sculley and partners talked with "major pension funds, mutual funds and private-equity funds, and there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the strategy we had," he said.

"We felt pretty confident that if the auction had proceeded, we would have had the possibility of being successful," he said.

Read more: Sculley lauds BlackBerry's Chen but may eye smartphone maker again - UPI.com

Sculley lauds BlackBerry's Chen but may eye smartphone maker again - UPI.com

I have a question for you guys. Obviously BlackBerry has had a target on its back for some time from the media. And, even though reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated as reported by John Chen, the media shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Chen seems to have done more in this last short month than TH did in a long time. I am impressed. However, the growing short interest in the stock acts as a continuous self-fulfilling prophecy of incessant doom and gloom. Even positive articles are spun negatively and the Canadian media (Glob and Mail!!) is just as bad as CNBC!

Anyways, my question is this - how does BlackBerry get rid of this negative stigma AND increase sales? These two things, at least to me, seem to be mutually exclusive. BlackBerry won't be able to increase sales enough until it changes the public or enterprise perception about the company's viability. John Chen needs to get rid of the short interest on this stock...somehow! I have been waiting for BlackBerry to announce a strategic partnership and am still hopeful they are working on something behind closed doors. I also like Sculley's idea of decoupling the hardware from the enterprise/software. It can still be a "Blackberry" device if its manufactured by a different company. This would do wonders for forward guidance at the next earnings call. So much so, that if they did decouple the hardware, it wouldn't be a stretch for JC to guide for profitability in the next or subsequent quarters. A line of sight to profitability, and how he will take BlackBerry there is all that is needed now for us to quickly fill that gap and start a rally!

Let's go BBRY!

[Superfly_FR]

Yeah, but return to 9930s, not BB10. Not sure this is particularly good news for anyone. (Nice to see something that doesn't just trash BB on all fronts though, for what that's worth.)

For now ...
Fixmo and BlackBerry Partner to Bring Sentinel Device Integrity and Tamper Detection Solution to BlackBerry 10 | CrackBerry.com

[Superfly_FR]

Yeah, but return to 9930s, not BB10. Not sure this is particularly good news for anyone. (Nice to see something that doesn't just trash BB on all fronts though, for what that's worth.)

Thanks !
Just asked @qnxPaul, will keep you posted !

Regarding the "hack your car" stuff, please make sure if you're looking into this and reporting on it that you've educated yourself enough on the situation to know the difference between a hack that someone could do from outside (e.g. drive-by, wirelessly somehow) and a "hack" that involves getting physical access to your car, plugging something into the internal network(s), and interfering with the operation that way.

The second use of "hack" is in quotation marks for a good reason. Many of the supposed "hacks" that have been reported involve that kind of access, so I don't think things are quite as wide-open even now as the media would have you believe.

I remember reading the Hardy Boys books when I was a young feller, and I think in every other one someone "hacked" someone's car by snipping a brake line. That's as much of a "hack" as some of the things I've seen reported lately.

Ok, nothing very specific, but you won't be surprised by the answer, neither do I. #wordsMatter

[bungaboy]

Regarding the "hack your car" stuff, please make sure if you're looking into this and reporting on it that you've educated yourself enough on the situation to know the difference between a hack that someone could do from outside (e.g. drive-by, wirelessly somehow) and a "hack" that involves getting physical access to your car, plugging something into the internal network(s), and interfering with the operation that way.

The second use of "hack" is in quotation marks for a good reason. Many of the supposed "hacks" that have been reported involve that kind of access, so I don't think things are quite as wide-open even now as the media would have you believe.

I remember reading the Hardy Boys books when I was a young feller, and I think in every other one someone "hacked" someone's car by snipping a brake line. That's as much of a "hack" as some of the things I've seen reported lately.

YES! The Hardy Boys. Thankfully they were before the 70's, else I wouldn't have remembered them. They were great stories.

[cgk]

In his exploration of a BlackBerry bid, Sculley and partners talked with "major pension funds, mutual funds and private-equity funds, and there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the strategy we had," he said.

"We felt pretty confident that if the auction had proceeded, we would have had the possibility of being successful," he said.

This is a minor and not specific to BBRY but everyone involved in this sort of process claims that their particular plan was met with 'a great deal of enthusiasm' ('great interest' is another one) when they talk to the press so you have to take that sort of claim with a pitch of salt unless you have specific names of investors who were interested.

[Corbu]

BlackBerry interim boss in it for the long haul: Fairfax - Yahoo Finance

LONDON (Reuters) - The interim chief executive recently appointed to revamp mobile phone maker BlackBerry is in it "for the long haul", the company's largest shareholder Prem Watsa told Reuters.

Watsa earlier this year sought partners in a $4.7 billion bid to take BlackBerry private. But his company, Fairfax Financial, then opted for a lead role in a $1 billion note offering to provide the Canadian company with money to fund a turnaround.

John Chen, a turnaround specialist with Sybase in the late 1990s, was brought in as interim CEO.

"John's committed for the long haul, he's an exceptional leader, he's going to do very well," Watsa told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Toronto office, where he described BlackBerry as an iconic company that deserves to succeed.

BlackBerry virtually invented the idea of on-the-go email, but lost its stranglehold on the market as rivals brought out more consumer-friendly devices like Apple's iPhone and phones using Google's Android software.

BlackBerry's struggles before Chen took over on November 25 were well documented, and analysts had already described the changes Chen was making as going beyond what would be expected from an interim appointment.

"In any of my investments we always look at the leadership, in this case it's John Chen, he's an outstanding leader," Watsa said, adding that Chen had already made "some very significant changes" at BlackBerry.

Watsa said the injection of cash from the new note meant BlackBerry was well financed. "It's got lots of cash, it has a long runway for John to make sure that the company is successful," he said. "We take the long-term view, we don't worry about quarter by quarter."

"Companies are built over time, they're built by good people working together under the leadership of a very good leader."

The failure to press ahead with the $4.7 billion takeover could be seen as a black mark on the resume of Watsa, who was on the right side of the U.S. housing crash in 2007 and 2008 and also won big in Tokyo's 1990 market collapse.

"You never look back, you deal with the hand that you have, there's no use looking at whether you can get four aces or a flush, you deal with the hand that you have," he said.

"We think BlackBerry is an iconic company, an iconic brand, it's known worldwide ... it's a company that deserves to exist and with John Chen it will."

[cgk]

Watsa said the injection of cash from the new note meant BlackBerry was well financed. "It's got lots of cash, it has a long runway for John to make sure that the company is successful," he said. "We take the long-term view, we don't worry about quarter by quarter."

Arguable - it's well financed for an MDM company but as a maker of consumer handsets, not so much... which is why we are seeing a (sensible) acceleration of the enterprise strategy.

[Shanerredflag]

I think Watsa had this in mind all along...he's been trumpeting the corporate/Gov device strengths forever.

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

OT, but may please some
Tesla Fires: NHTSA Inquiry Seeks Additional Info On Model S Fires | BGR

[plasmid_boy]

Arguable - it's well financed for an MDM company but as a maker of consumer handsets, not so much... which is why we are seeing a (sensible) acceleration of the enterprise strategy.

Given that both Watsa and Chen said that BB is well financed, who are we to argue with them?

[jake simmons3]

Another ugly day on low volume

[BlackistheBerry]

Way to go, Samsung.....

[morganplus8]

Another ugly day on low volume

One of the things we try to do in charting is make use of parallel lines, when we do this, we come up with a chart like this for BBRY:



These parallel lines work for BBRY, we have two recent occasions when the stock is grossly oversold followed by a 20% rally. We are in the second phase of this formation right now. The RSI is below 30 for a period of a couple of weeks before it forms a base and moves higher. The support is at last September's inter-day low which is just below us today. So it isn't surprising that we are slowly heading for the low $ 6.00 area prior to Q3 news. I believe the recent news has been pretty positive for BlackBerry but the MM's are working the stock lower here.

To summarize, the downside is $ 6.00/shr and any attempt to reach that number should be followed with a pop in the stock. A double bottom and a decent Q3 sets us up for a much needed rally here. Finally, a move above $ 6.50/shr sets us up for a strong rally to the $ 10.00 to $ 11.00/shr area. The general market is down, we are down, not much to cause us to go against the general market right now. GL

[michaelshawn]

Does everyone think the Q3 results are really going to be that bad?

Posted via CB10

[Jahcure]

Does everyone think the Q3 results are really going to be that bad?

Posted via CB10

I think it will be a blood bath and when it occurs I will buy in.

Posted via CB10

[plasmid_boy]

Way to go, Samsung.....

It might be nontrivial for older guys to swipe on that big screen. Maybe it comes with viagra to make it easier.

[cgk]

Given that both Watsa and Chen said that BB is well financed, who are we to argue with them?

Maybe you are right and we should just accept uncritically every statement a CEO makes, like Heins and the Q10:

“This is going into the installed base of more than 70 million BlackBerry users so we have quite some expectations. We expect several tens of million of units,” he said.

[plasmid_boy]

Maybe you are right and we should just accept uncritically every statement a CEO makes, like Heins and the Q10:

Ummm...I never said that 'we should just accept uncritically every statement a CEO makes'.

Those are two different statements. One was an expectation based on a current user base (perfectly reasonable expectation, but just turned out to be wrong as many expectations do). The subject at hand is that both Prem and Johnny said 'BB is well funded' to provide a long enough runway. We have no data or knowledge to doubt that statement at this point in time.

[cgk]

Ummm...I never said that 'we should just accept uncritically every statement a CEO makes'.

Those are two different statements. One was an expectation based on a current user base (perfectly reasonable expectation, but just turned out to be wrong as many expectations do). The subject at hand is that both Prem and Johnny said 'BB is well funded' to provide a long enough runway. We have no data or knowledge to doubt that statement at this point in time.

We have plenty of data about the size and characteristics of the mobile market and structural issues that exist in that market - or are we just talking about BBRY outside the context of the market? An odd way to do analysis.

[Superfly_FR]

FYI since I had to spend a little time on this ... You may have a look at it (click on the first quote link to jump into the thread)
edit : I'll remove the links for competitors sources here, but they are intact in original post/thread)

Can anyone provide numbers of installs that competitors have to their names? Its hard to evaluate this data without some perspective on the competition.

Thank you for asking !

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 22, 2013 – MobileIron, the leader in security and management for mobile apps, documents, and devices, today announced massive growth in 2012, tripling the number of new seats sold in 2012 compared to 2011. Customer acquisition continued to accelerate as the company added more than 700 enterprise customers per quarter.

M0bile Ir0n:
Optimistic approach (presuming 0 client stopped (or went bankrupt) and the growth was constant +700 Q2Q.)
2012 = 700*4 = 2800
2011 = 50% of 2800 = 1400
Let's add some for 2013, say 3*700 = 2100
So the big number is :
userbase over 3 years = 2800+1400+2100 = 6300.
But nothing about the CALs # ... which, obviously is where you earn money.

Interesting too is the size of the companies, you may have a look at their reference page here :
MobileIron Customers | MobileIron
More fun ?
They seem to have all the top ten companies in a given area ... see air watch banner V.S MobileIron banner
Customers |�*AirWatch

Some more data ...
G00D : 5,000 organizations (Industries but number is at the bottom of the page for the whole)
A1rwatch : 9,000 customers (About Us |�*AirWatch)
Kn0x = 0

GRAN TOTAL : 6300+5000+9000 = 15800

P.S : these numbers are estimated and/or issued from personal calculations. Actual number may vary +/-.
Just an estimation to give metrics magnitude.

So this this something as half of current BES10 install/testing ...

[sidhuk]

Ummm...I never said that 'we should just accept uncritically every statement a CEO makes'.

Those are two different statements. One was an expectation based on a current user base (perfectly reasonable expectation, but just turned out to be wrong as many expectations do). The subject at hand is that both Prem and Johnny said 'BB is well funded' to provide a long enough runway. We have no data or knowledge to doubt that statement at this point in time.

His job is to drive people NUTS.
I heard you are a doctor and your job is to fix the NUTS and their supporting cast.
Lets see.
LoL
May be SF should repost the "how to use ignore button" guide again?

[greggebhardt]

Does everyone think the Q3 results are really going to be that bad?

Posted via CB10

Less than 1% in the US.

Toilet!

[michaelshawn]

Less than 1% in the US.

Toilet!

So shouldn't we all sell now then

Posted via CB10

[Superfly_FR]

So shouldn't we all sell now then

Posted via CB10

That's an answer no one coul reasonably give without your investment profile and stratgy.
Your shares, your money, your decision. I suggest that given your strategy you grab some adice here but also outside the passionated area