This is getting serious now. RIM has fired back from the “open letter” that was supposedly written by high-level RIM employee to RIM execs. You can read parts of it here (or the full letter here at BGR), but it basically blasted RIM for not moving innovation forward, failing as a company and falling behind Apple, Microsoft and others in the mobile space.
In response, RIM posted a note on their company blog that, for some reason, gives an outlook on their future products and ensures the world they are financial stable with “nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt”. Very interesting direction to take on an “open letter”.
RIM says that it’s “obviously difficult to address anonymous commentary” but the “senior management team at RIM is nonetheless fully aware of and aggressively addressing both the company’s challenges and its opportunities”. This is true as they publicly stated during their Q1 2012 fiscal results that will “streamline operations” to focus on offering new products that have the “highest growth opportunities”.
“RIM recently confirmed that it is nearing the end of a major business and technology transition. Although this transition has taken longer than anticipated, there is much excitement and optimism within the company about the new products that are lined up for the coming months. There is a fundamental business reality however that following an extended period of hyper growth (during which RIM nearly quadrupled in size over the past 5 years alone), it has become necessary for the company to streamline its operations in order to allow it to grow its business profitably while pursuing newer strategic opportunities. Again, RIM’s management team takes these challenges seriously and is actively addressing the situation. The company is thankfully in a solid business and financial position to tackle the opportunities ahead with a solid balance sheet (nearly $3 billion in cash and no debt), strong profitability (RIM’s net income last quarter was $695 million) and substantial international growth (international revenue in Q1 grew 67% over the same quarter last year). In fact, while growth has slowed in the US, RIM still shipped 13.2 million BlackBerry smartphones last quarter (which is about 100 smartphones per minute, 24 hours per day) and RIM is more committed than ever to serving its loyal customers and partners around the world.”
Thoughts?
Check it out here at RIM
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