[[email protected]]

Wasn't there a thread not too long ago where she staunchly defended BB and RIM?

Is it possible that she knows something by way of insider information that the GP does not?:



Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) just lost one of its biggest fans. If you have been watching CNBC for years, you know by now that many of the anchors on that financial news network have been Blackberry addicts for years. That includes anchor Maria Bartiromo. She and other anchors have been longstanding defenders of the Blackberry smartphone for years and years.

Before you think �Who cares about a news anchor�s smartphone choice?� you need to consider one thing.

When a news anchor is endorsing your product day in and day out, this is free advertising. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been half of the contributing force to the long slow death of the RIM brand. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been the other with its Android OS powering so many devices. On the �Closing Bell� segment of CNBC on Friday Maria Bartiromo gave a special blurb about how she has finally dumped her Blackberry in favor of an iPhone.

This is not just a one-off event. Free advertisement is hard to beat. This won�t be such a standout move like Bono�s Elevation Partners investing in Palm and then having U2 do a Blackberry advertisement (yes, that happened and it was a total boob move for Bono�s money matters). Bartiromo talked about the problems she had been having over and over for the last two weeks. Despite the sloppy word typing that you know about if you use an iPhone and despite missing the keyboard, the idea is that the iPhone works. Yet one more long-time champion of the Blackberry has turned on RIM.

After Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) finally was allowed to carry the iPhone, I too decided to switch to the iPhone. I had been a Blackberry user before, but my defection to the iPhone was from Palm. I loved the keyboard and still miss the Keyboard. If you ever try to do �on the fly� journalism, and iPhone is just not that easy to use. Still, when things are going wrong with your historical favorite it drive change. I defected to Palm from having originally having a Blackberry smartphone. The interface was just much better. But now we know that Palm died because it was just not as popular as the screen-only phone wave killed the keyboard phones. Now keyboard phones are for old-fogeys.

Don�t discount the impact that this key defection will have. RIM lost one of its few unpaid champions today. What happens every time the CNBC anchors are talking down RIM or talking up iPhones for the next few months? Think about it and you might decide that this could just encourage more investors to bet against RIM or to dump RIM. This is also just a few days before RIM�s earnings. RIM already warned that it may now have an operating loss.

RIM�s US-listed stock is now down under $10.00 and its 52-week low is now $9.57. It has a market value of $5.1 billion. If RIM is going to lose money, it just does not matter that the value is now below its net tangible assets. So what? Those coming losses will eat up that tangible value faster than its new management team can imagine.

Maybe this was just one of the last great public holdouts and champions finally capitulating and dumping the keyboard for the cooler iPhone. Maybe you will call it a late-adopter. Either way, RIM just lost a key source of free advertisement and that free advertisement has now morphed into negative publicity.

We just noted RIM as a Brand That Will Disappear in 2013. Let�s just say that we have not exactly been RIM supporters for quite some time.

Today�s news may seem like entertainment, but it is more than that. Think about this� We wouldn�t exactly have a RIM Deathwatch if we did not think RIM was going to either implode or lose so much market share that it becomes largely irrelevant.

JON C. OGG

RIM Deathwatch: Maria Bartiromo Dumps Blackberry For iPhone - 24/7 Wall St.

[Shao128]

It's amazing what the media will spin as "news" just to bash RIM.

[anon(4018671)]

I used watch Maria B. but I'm know there are A LOT hotter women out there to tell me useless crap. You know someone with a nicer "interface"

[kbz1960]

Who cares, well maybe someone does but I don't. She can use whatever she wants.

[diegonei]

Who cares, well maybe someone does but I don't. She can use whatever she wants.

And that's all that really should be said about that...

[southlander]

Bartiromo talked about the problems she had been having over and over for the last two weeks.

She can use whatever she wants, but pu-lease... I am sure there are some techs somewhere in that there CNBC building that could security wipe and reload the OS to fix whatever she screwed up.

She should just fess up and admit she could not take not being part of the cool iPhone crowd any longer.

[Pete6]

My cousins kid, quite a looker btw, has also just given up her BlackBerry for an iPhone but I guess this is not news.

Whatevers.

[hpjrt]

Another non-news piece of little or no interest or import. Don't know the woman. I certainly don't value her opinion or that of any "newscaster" for that matter. So few of today's news personnel are actually "journalists" so their opinions aren't based on fact - merely trend.

[abwan11]

She was probably given an incentive to switch.

[[email protected]]

She can use whatever she wants, but pu-lease... I am sure there are some techs somewhere in that there CNBC building that could security wipe and reload the OS to fix whatever she screwed up.

She should just fess up and admit she could not take not being part of the cool iPhone crowd any longer.

Some of you guys are so quick to respond it makes me wonder.

The problems mentioned are those with her IPHONE. 'No Keyboard', Misspelled words. NOT her BB.

My confusion still stands. I worked on Wall Street for 17 years before pursuing writing. I still hold 3 Securities Licenses(illegally 'parked' at a friend's Broker Dealer because I, would NEVER, want to have have to take those exams again). And people DO pass information to one another behind the scenes.

I'm no conspiracy theorist by any stretch. I think what has happened to RIM is of their own doing.

BUT, I find it... Curious when a person who has access to a great wealth of insider information, suddenly moves away from a brand that she has been championing for years.

Curious indeed.

Waiting to see what happens with the stock and any announcements this week.

[anthogag]

OMG, who gives a flying-duck what a news anchor does or doesn't do. Those guys have mostly air between their ears

Why would the OP consider this news...this is iSheep quality news

[anon(4018671)]

BUT, I find it... Curious when a person who has access to a great wealth of insider information, suddenly moves away from a brand that she has been championing for years.

Curious indeed.

Well you can't be part of the death watch if you are currently using a device you claim to be on its death bed.

I mean really couldn't these guys make an effort to obfuscate what they are doing?

[silversun10]

so what has Marias "endorsement" done for RIM lately, right diddley squat, so too bad, but really who cares?

[silversun10]

"BUT, I find it... Curious when a person who has access to a great wealth of insider information, suddenly moves away from a brand that she has been championing for years."

very funny, you got to be kidding, right?

[anthogag]

Some of you guys are so quick to respond it makes me wonder.

The problems mentioned are those with her IPHONE. 'No Keyboard', Misspelled words. NOT her BB.

My confusion still stands. I worked on Wall Street for 17 years before pursuing writing. I still hold 3 Securities Licenses(illegally 'parked' at a friend's Broker Dealer because I, would NEVER, want to have have to take those exams again). And people DO pass information to one another behind the scenes.

I'm no conspiracy theorist by any stretch. I think what has happened to RIM is of their own doing.

BUT, I find it... Curious when a person who has access to a great wealth of insider information, suddenly moves away from a brand that she has been championing for years.

Curious indeed.

Waiting to see what happens with the stock and any announcements this week.

Blah blah blah...you can say whatever you want on a forum...why don't you just say it...you're Peter Pan right

I find it curious that you're reaching for some kind of 'she knows something' spin...meaningless fluff

[morganplus8]

It's just laughable!!! She says she types slower and it mixes her text up a lot but she has switched!!! Yeah!!!

Anyone with a job like hers, promoting herself around the clock, needs a Blackberry AND "an also ran" phone. Why she thinks having one phone is the way to go when you resign yourself to typing too slow and many mistakes is so beyond me. Martha Stewart has two Blackberries, many of us have two phones, this is her whole life, nothing else matters more than her messaging. GET TWO PHONES DUMMY! (Then she would only suffer two weeks a year with her iPhone).

[[email protected]]

Blah blah blah...you can say whatever you want on a forum...why don't you just say it...you're Peter Pan right

I find it curious that you're reaching for some kind of 'she knows something' spin...meaningless fluff

Actually, Mr. Gag, I thought Michael Jackson was Peter Pan.

[anon(4018671)]

It's just laughable!!! She says she types slower and it mixes her text up a lot but she has switched!!! Yeah!!!

Anyone with a job like hers, promoting herself around the clock, needs a Blackberry AND "an also ran" phone. Why she thinks having one phone is the way to go when you resign yourself to typing too slow and many mistakes is so beyond me. Martha Stewart has two Blackberries, many of us have two phones, this is her whole life, nothing else matters more than her messaging. GET TWO PHONES DUMMY! (Then she would only suffer two weeks a year with her iPhone).

you don't even need a second phone, use an ipod and setup wifi hotspot on the BB and you'd only have one data/phone plan (not that she needs to be thrifty)

[southlander]

The problems mentioned are those with her IPHONE. 'No Keyboard', Misspelled words. NOT her BB.

Ok my bad. That certainly is not clear from the context of the article.

[[email protected]]

Ok my bad. That certainly is not clear from the context of the article.

No worries! Go Tar Heels!! Next Year, that is...

[Masahiro]

Some of you guys are so quick to respond it makes me wonder.

The problems mentioned are those with her IPHONE. 'No Keyboard', Misspelled words. NOT her BB.

My confusion still stands. I worked on Wall Street for 17 years before pursuing writing. I still hold 3 Securities Licenses(illegally 'parked' at a friend's Broker Dealer because I, would NEVER, want to have have to take those exams again). And people DO pass information to one another behind the scenes.

So you say you're pursuing writing? Did you start this morning?

As for the topic, who cares. People switch phones all the time.

[anthogag]

It's just laughable!!! She says she types slower and it mixes her text up a lot but she has switched!!! Yeah!!!

Anyone with a job like hers, promoting herself around the clock, needs a Blackberry AND "an also ran" phone. Why she thinks having one phone is the way to go when you resign yourself to typing too slow and many mistakes is so beyond me. Martha Stewart has two Blackberries, many of us have two phones, this is her whole life, nothing else matters more than her messaging. GET TWO PHONES DUMMY! (Then she would only suffer two weeks a year with her iPhone).

She's image conscious, she's going to switch to an iPhone...her job depended on it

[bambinoitaliano]

First of all I have no clue who Maria is. And secondly, I have not watch any tv news for a year or so, let alone CNN. Any interesting news will be posted on-line anyway. Like the print news, tv news will be next to be irrelevant. Why do you think Fox talking heads are jumping up and down making ridiculous things up just to get attention?

[BBPandy]

so what has Marias "endorsement" done for RIM lately, right diddley squat, so too bad, but really who cares?

didn't she just recently talk about how touch screen devices are not made for women? Less blood in their fingertips means that touch screens are less responsive to their fingures.

I don't really care that she switched, but I'm confused. For years she has been talking up BB & talking down iPhone & now all of a sudden she switches out of the blue. She then talks about how many problems she has had with the iPhone since she got it & how she's happy she switched.

Well if she likes to have things that don't work. I have a car she can buy. The thing's a lemon & keeps braking down, she'll love it!

[[email protected]]

I don't really care that she switched, but I'm confused. For years she has been talking up BB & talking down iPhone & now all of a sudden she switches out of the blue.

Which is exactly what I was saying before the ...... came in.