[Claudio Sanchez1]

The company is being pummeled by the many shorts and bashers and pessimists who want nothing more than to see BB go away so they can collect their money from shorting the stock. So I ask, as a shareholder who bought stock and who wants the company to succeed, why is nothing being done to combat this. You cant just provide these stupid comments such as the company is in a quiet period. What company says something ridiculous like that when the product is being pummelled by short list investors and the news writers paid by the shorts even though the product is superior. Its a superior phone but if you let the Forbes of the world say what they want it will change the perception of anyone wanting to buy the phone. Potential buyers will get scared off thinking that the company will be broke in a years time. So i ask again can someone please wake these people up to the facts as in one month the company will be finished.

[sandman10]

The pundits have been telling us since 2008 that RIM was bankrupt and going out of business.

Every year its the same thing.

Then recently, they said RIM wouldn't have enough money left to launch BB10 when RIM announced the delay.

Now people are saying BB will be dead in 1 year.

Why should Heins start defending now?

What I like about BB as a company is they, for the most part, "ignore the noise" and keep their heads down, and just stay focused on what they need to do.

I approve of the way Heins is steering this company overall and hope they stay hungry and scrappy.

[Claudio Sanchez1]

Of course I agree he has done a good job with restructuring the company. But the stock is being bashed down. This company does not have the luxury of tons of cash as it is not an Apple, Google or microsoft. To be naive to think the company wont go broke is absurd. The company is bleeding cash. Everything must be done now and not later. To say nothing and do nothing just plays in the hands of the many many short sellers. The stock has 130,000,000 shorts. What does that tell you. Every broker and analyst is telling the world that the product and the company wont succeed. So stop the talk now. If the sales have gone as they say then they should give out some positive comments to counteract the negativity from the shorts as they are relentless and are good at what they do. They need to be a bit more like Apple who does not sit on their ***. hasnt the company screwed up enough the last few years.

[adjdudley21]

The company is being pummeled by the many shorts and bashers and pessimists who want nothing more than to see BB go away so they can collect their money from shorting the stock. So I ask, as a shareholder who bought stock and who wants the company to succeed, why is nothing being done to combat this. You cant just provide these stupid comments such as the company is in a quiet period. What company says something ridiculous like that when the product is being pummelled by short list investors and the news writers paid by the shorts even though the product is superior. Its a superior phone but if you let the Forbes of the world say what they want it will change the perception of anyone wanting to buy the phone. Potential buyers will get scared off thinking that the company will be broke in a years time. So i ask again can someone please wake these people up to the facts as in one month the company will be finished.

What is he supposed to say exactly? Thats like you thinking you caught somebody in a lie, the more they defend, the more you are gonna call them a liar.... Blackberry is just fine, they are launching the phones everywhere and seeing positive results.. All that matters now is getting this phone to the US and have great numbers to show at the end of Q1, and more importantly getting the major apps

[Jimberry Storm]

I kind of agree but, if they just let their product do the talking that will fail. No matter the quality of the product, they need to change public perception. I am a stock holder and big fan. Only smartphone I have ever owned are BB's. Checked out the rest, not interested, but even I am getting tired of waiting for BB next big thing, and then wait, and then wait, and then wait, and then wait. all the while trying to defend BB when people bash them. My sister-in law said to me the other day she was reading an article that stated BB's are not even smartphones, it is exasperating.

[silversun10]

they are in the quiet period before they announce the next quarter results, so Blackberry actually can't say anything

[dbmalloy]

As almost all the negativity is relating in one for or another to stock price.... with so many shoring the stock right now.... none of this is surprising.....trying to defend a publicly held company against false information is the kiss of death.... no matter what you say... it will twisted against you...so what is the point....

[Sqoon]

They are busy launching the most important product in their company's history.

Posted via CB10

[Tre Lawrence]

So i ask again can someone please wake these people up to the facts as in one month the company will be finished.

That's not very positive, is it now?

[kazmi]

Its a reality now that pure speculation can land companies in some serious trouble...that latest report where the analyst revised the projected handset sales down from 1.x million to 300,000 was very damaging. The other perception which I feel is even more damaging is this notion that the blackberry is being sold out because there simply wasn't enough inventory available to begin with. I would like to see something in the media that keeps pounding the same message from BBRY- that we are here to stay and win and that we are alive!!!

[kbz1960]

And what are they going to do? Yell back nuh uh

[kcdist]

I agree completely that BBRY must step forward soon and issue a press release to counter the recent negativity of the past few days.

The issues isn't that some bearish analyst makes a negative guess as to what shipping numbers will be. The issue is that that same guess is then linked to and repeated over and over in Main Stream Media outlets until it is taken as gospel. Just this morning, I found this quote from an investor site, Seeking Alpha:


"Major retailers are already announcing that they're cutting sales projections and will look to carry smaller inventory than originally intended. In fact, retailers are noting significantly lower interest in the BB10 as compared to the launch of the BB7 (2011), which included upgraded versions of the popular Bold, Torch, and Curve."

This is an outright lie, but uses the analysts' comments from two days ago, and then adds some creative licence to make the thesis even worse.

Once this is picked up by the Main Stream Media, which is has been, and is repeated over the next few weeks, I have no doubt that it will affect the purchasing decision of some that might think "The Z10 sounds interesting, but I don't want to spend my money on a poorly selling product from a company that's going under"

I say March 28th, when the actual results from the fourth quarter will be released, is too long to wait. It will give the bearish analysts a full 5 weeks to spread outlandish rumours and outright lies. Once these make it down to the clerk level at Walmart or BestBuy, it's going to hurt the company.

A good defense is a strong offence....

[katesbb]

and more importantly getting the major apps

Agreed, I really wish they had spent all that "portathon" money to bribe the Big Names into developing the well-known apps, instead of 70,000 (or whatever the number is) apps no one's heard of. Having to say "committed" at the launch event really didn't go over very well I don't think.

[Thunderbuck]

The company is bleeding cash. Everything must be done now and not later.

Huh? They've been steadily increasing their cash position every quarter for the past year. They're spending now, sure, because they've got a new product to produce and marketing costs to cover. Their operating costs have been reined in considerably.

To say nothing and do nothing just plays in the hands of the many many short sellers. The stock has 130,000,000 shorts. What does that tell you.

It tells me a lot of investors and brokers have a stake in discrediting BB, because when the stock goes up again it's going to kill them financially. It also means that my own investment will skyrocket. We've all laid our bets.

Every broker and analyst is telling the world that the product and the company wont succeed.

Patently untrue. Jeffries' Peter Misek was one of the biggest BB skeptics for a long time, completely dismissing any chance they could come back. Goldman Sachs rates it a "buy", and while BB has become a "battleground" stock (controversial, with conflicting analyst advice), it's a clear improvement over the universally-negative sentiment it faced a year ago. They lived through that, I'm confident they'll live through this.

So stop the talk now. If the sales have gone as they say then they should give out some positive comments to counteract the negativity from the shorts as they are relentless and are good at what they do. They need to be a bit more like Apple who does not sit on their ***. hasnt the company screwed up enough the last few years.

"Stop the talk"... how? Start threatening analysts? Address every negative comment? The thing is, analysts are actually entitled to their interpretations. I don't agree with most of them, and some of them may indeed have hidden agendas. I haven't seen anyone out there actually lying. What it SOUNDS like, is that you want to hear preliminary sales figures, but since they've launched in generally small markets it doesn't matter how good those numbers are, because they'll pale in comparison to Apple's "20-million" first weekends. And it winds up sounding defensive.

You don't like the stock? Get out. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.

[kazmi]

I do think releasing preliminary numbers or some sort of numbers to show how well BBRY sold internationally will help. Or landing/announcing a major enterprise contract/agreement...I'm not someone who is knowledgeable in markets but I do know that they don't have much room to play with here...you need deep pockets to be able to bear such loss in share value..and when a fair number of analysts are reporting negatively about you, that doesn't bode well...this isn't the same market anymore - it's very very sensitive to speculation.

[Superfly_FR]

They don't WANT to. There have been a lot of silence and "will talk about that with the board but not here"; it's fine.
Let the gambler do their trick with the stock; they play, they win, they lose ... that's not our problem. Stock is crazy volatile but within a (very approx) $13.5-$14.5 range. Spectacular on daily charts, but if you stretch the time frame ...

Just relax, enjoy the fight, have pop-corn and (caffeine free) Coke, watch the waggles and wait for the 28th. Then, they'll talk and IMHO, the "street consensus" will be bested hard: it'll be time for a sky-rocketing, powered by a massive "wow, they really did it". Then you'll count your wallet value. Until then, let's just avoid to quote (moreover to link) these "analysts" and give them free over-exposition, please.

[scorpiodsu]

Just curious, what do you think is the appropriate response? You don't often see companies respond to negative stuff when it's either subjective or someone's opinion. Of course, factual stuff should be addressed, but for things that are opinionated, I'm not sure if there's a situation where Blackberry, or any company could win without sound like a whiner who's being picked on.

[Claudio Sanchez1]

its a reality now that pure speculation can land companies in some serious trouble...that latest report where the analyst revised the projected handset sales down from 1.x million to 300,000 was very damaging. The other perception which i feel is even more damaging is this notion that the blackberry is being sold out because there simply wasn't enough inventory available to begin with. I would like to see something in the media that keeps pounding the same message from bbry- that we are here to stay and win and that we are alive!!!

yes i agree with that. Company is saying its the best launch ever which should mean they already sold 500,000 units 2 weeks ago. Now you have scumbag shorts trying to tarnish their reputation and credibility. To say nothing and do nothing is the kiss of death. Its all about perception.

Google blackberry and you see nothing but negative stories. What thorsten heins said 3 weeks ago is now old news and being put down by the shorts. The shorts are powerful and manipulative and hold journalists and analysts in their back pockets. If you dont fight back you are dead. Are they trying to sell product or not. It wont get bought if people see only negative articles about the launch being a disaster and sales are not what heins said.

How many mistakes does this company have to make before they get it. There is only once chance and then its over as the company is losing money and does not have the luxury of waiting. Anyone who says there is time is not too bright. Read the analyst posts and you will see whats at stake. 2.5 billion in cash is not very much when your losing money every quarter.

And what is this quiet period nonsense. Nokia got out positive news 2 weeks before their earnings came out 2 months ago trying to stem a short raid.

Read the forbes articles and the seeking alpha articles. Being canadian sometimes means being mellow and passive but that will get you killed in the us where they are sharks. They are lurking around waiting and hoping for this company to fail so stand up and fight the attacks before its too late

[joe.miller]

I'm not someone who is knowledgeable in markets

You said a mouthful, there.

[kazmi]

Agree with both of you - and thanks for posting the stock timeframe - it really does put it into the right perspective...I guess I (and pretty much all of crackberry nation) want BBRY to really come back with a bang and prove all these so called experts dead wrong...

[kazmi]

You said a mouthful, there.

Thanks,an extremely helpful post that was!

[Thunderbuck]

It's the old cliche: "this isn't a sprint, it's a marathon".

Markets swing on sentiment all the time, but sentiment that runs counter to reality isn't sustainable.

[joe.miller]

Thanks,an extremely helpful post that was!

Alright then, here, I'll repeat and expand on something that I've said in any one of a half dozen different threads on this same subject:

Here's what you want your CEO and his executive team to be doing:

• Negotiating carrier agreements
• Negotiating strategic partnerships
• Investigating and negotiating licensing deals
• Identifying product roadmaps for 6/12/18 month timeframes

Here's what you don't want your CEO and executive team to be doing:

• Issuing press releases, doing interviews and giving soundbites everytime a two-bit hack with a CrackerJack box MBA pulls numbers out of their nether regions.

It's the CEO's job to create shareholder value OVER THE LONG TERM. You do that by building a successful company, and the stock price will follow. If your CEO gives half a thought about the day-to-day or week-to-week fluctuations of the stock price, they should be fired.

[kcdist]

@ joe.miller

This is not just about the stock price. It's about public sentiment and purchasing decisions. If I was thinking about purchasing the Z10, but then read a few articles on Yahoo about how Blackberry was likely going out of business.....I might opt for a Lumina instead. It's a PR war. The bearish side wants to negatively affect stock price, but in so doing, they end up hurting Blackberry's reputation as a stable, long term company. This affects sales......

[sosumi11]

Agreed, I really wish they had spent all that "portathon" money to bribe the Big Names into developing the well-known apps, instead of 70,000 (or whatever the number is) apps no one's heard of. Having to say "committed" at the launch event really didn't go over very well I don't think.

Big Name Developers are not going to spend Big Time Money without a Big Time Return On Investment.

In order to get developers you need sales.
In order to get sales, you need developers.

Starting an ecosystem from scratch today is a Herculean task.

BlackBerry still doesn't seem to know where they fit in. They built a very robust platform, but with nothing in it. They have the potential to build something unique, but they didn't kickstart it with a BlackBerry Business Suite. Sorry, but a great message app isn't the answer.

Microsof's Office holds a monopoly on business software and the new BB10 does not address that. Not at all. If BlackBerry wants to attack the world they have to hit hard with an Excel/Word/PowerPoint alternative.

Rethinking business apps is not easy.
Nor are maps.