[webmeister]

There is an interesting article in today's edition (January 27 2012) of the Ottawa Citizen. It both summarizes how much of RIM's engineering of the upcoming BlackBerry platforms has shifted from Waterloo and that fully 2,000 people of RIM's 17,000-person strong worldwide workforce are now based in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa. There are many reasons for this, chief amongst them the surplus of engineering and other technical talent in the Ottawa area. Kanata has traditionally been called "Silicon Valley North", and its nice to see how all the excellent brains in the wireless field are being used by RIM. Nortel was heavily committed to the development of LTE (Long-term Evolution) which is a next-gen 4G radio technology. Thorsten Heins, the new CEO of RIM, points out that the major reason behind BlackBerry 10 smartphones being delayed to fall 2012was the late decision to include LTE in the platform.

On an equally serious note, Thorsten Heins recognizes that much rides on the success of QNX in upcoming products, but also seems genuinely enthusiastic about other future uses of the PlayBook OS, especially as it relates to the automotive industry. It's interesting to note that, with the exception of Ford, the vast majority of car manufacturers use QNX as a realtime embedded operating system, controlling the various systems of the modern car including HVAC, entertainment, and safety systems.

Quoting from the article, it seems like RIM is in a good position and the numbers (despite the stocks' fortune) seem to prove it:
"Heins pointed at RIM�s strengths. The 28-year-old firm is profitable, has $1.5 billion in cash and zero debt. It expects revenues to reach $19 billion in the current fiscal year, which will end next month. The company has more than 75 million users of its products around the world."

Read more: RIM shifts BlackBerry development work to Ottawa

Article link:
RIM shifts BlackBerry development work to Ottawa

[Raestloz]

$1.5 billion is not exactly great, as they still have to pay salaries, fund R&D, advertising, and producing the smartphones. It's nice to hear that they still have a chance, but BlackBerries are not exactly known as "high-tech" compared to iPhone and Android smartphones. I do hope that they will hold out a bit and unleash a true beast that is reliable. Something that will really put them back on the map.

Right now, most of those 75 million users seem to be from 3rd world countries (Indonesia having the biggest userbase growth, if I'm not mistaken)

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com