Dig into the final quarter and look at the developer story and you find that Research In Motion (RIM) - Despite the encouraging noises - just the same problem as Nokia: a platform that 's to die under the feet

The numbers came in from Canada's Research In Motion (RIM) on Thursday night, and some parts make disquieting reading.
Turnover: by 16% over the previous year to $ 4.91bn (but below the forecast at the end of last quarter, RIM had stated).
Gains: by 9.6% over the previous year to $ 695 (below the forecast announced last quarter).
Handset Shipments to 18% over the previous year to 13.2 million.
Playbook Shows: 500 000 In its first quarter (had expected much better than the 336 000 analysts. Note, of course, the broadcasts are not actual sales).

In reporting for the fourth quarter in March, RIM forecast revenue in the range of $ 5.2-$ 5.6 billion and a profit of between $ 770-812m.
Instead, they were both lower. It could be on that look and say that the revenues are up, and shipments are - so what 's make the worry?

Firstly, it 's in the gap between these two - which led to the decline in profits. Basically, you can clearly see from these figures that RIM needs to get less money per phone. Very much less when you consider the average cost of a playbook (what will be, much more than a BlackBerry).

We were able to tell you exactly how much it was getting per handset have - but according to their results last time, RIM said it would stop, both the average selling prices (ASPs) for mobile phones and the total number of BlackBerry subscribers, which it had done since the beginning of 2002. And another financial terms: The company is responsible for the repurchase of 5% of outstanding shares. I 't in the mechanics of why share buybacks are bad (two quick reasons: to spend the better company to be cash, such as R & D should have, and repurchases duvet executive stock options) to go. Butwhen a company circles the car by reducing the amount of data that are out there and has a share repurchase program, something is wrong.

Here 's what' s wrong: RIM 's burning platform . Except that this isn 't the full-fledged conflagration that Stephen Elop perceived at Nokia. It 's more of a smoldering fire. But it 's happening anyway, and it' s done for a long time: RIM hasn 't published as an important new cell phone August 2010 . (. Yes, that 's almost as long as Apple) It was sort of a new version of the Torch of May, that will actually be released in September. (Way to kill the sale, people.)

RIM's management knows it has a problem, but doesn't seem to be able to make the shift - the very difficult shift, it should be noted - from the old BlackBerry OS to the new QNX platform that is going to power forthcoming BlackBerrys (and already powers the PlayBook).

QNX-based phones have been promised a lot, RIM hasn 't provided, however. Coming and what 's more, they won' t until the end of this current quarter (which runs until the end of August), said Jim Balsillie, Co-Chief Executive (with Mike Lazaridis, we would be pleased to know that other companies , Joint Chief Executives have - let us know in the comments) in the profit-seeking alpha transcript.

Here 's what he said: "Forecasting the second quarter, given that we \ challenge". Re planning two major launches of new products that are likely to bridge the end of Q2 into Q3, the specific time this starts to have an influence as much of these products shipped in Q2 compared to Q3. These products have higher ASPs, a shift in the share of these products in the mix for the second Quarter also has a significant impact on our revenue and earnings forecasts. "

He added: "We have an exciting range of products, services and activities expected that between now and the end of the fiscal year to be introduced, and we believe that this together with the introduction of new tiered service pricing in the U.S. and around around the world the way for an acceleration of growth in Q3 and beyond. "

Always good to be positive. But analysts don 't buy: The prognosis "means that new devices won' t it \ in the second quarter," said Tero Kuittinen, an analyst at MKM Partners in Stamford, Connecticut "This is a quarter of it is really needed new equipment to keep them there and they won 't "(Amazingly, he has the share at" buy "-. maybe after the 15% drop after the announcement, but the stock by almost 40% this year .)

Stockbrokers Nomura aren 't too positive either: Stuart Jeffrey says that the front guide "means that RIM' s deteriorating competitive position through the first half of fiscal year acceleration" and \ meet "for the full year [earnings Sales and] leadership, new products have a strong performance in [the] second half of fiscal "He said:". The products are no longer good enough to meet the needs of smartphone users who make combined with increasing competition, the company in the collapse of stock prices is seen ... what margins come under pressure to start now, and this will accelerate the unwinding of the earnings estimates, so that the bearings are not nearly as cheap as it works. We see no reason to be involved and see below. "Nomura pulls the prospects for Samsung, HTC and LG.

0

My analysis: RIM in the smartphone market as the iPhone and the high-end Android phones (and maybe even a couple of Windows Mobile handsets) pushed the company to have top-end divide-used. (Tries to align RIM 's out-of-kilter with the usual quarter Jan-March ones), by my calculations, Apple has sold for RIM phones in the last three quarters (July-Sep, Oct-Dec, Jan-Mar) and everything is far from certain that the same be done in this quarter. That 's an entire year in which they' s outselling RIM not only in numbers but also sales (and profits). And of course, Android wipes the floor everywhere, now the largest smartphone OS to share with.

RIM is always hammered because their phones are now in OS terms, old. RIM 's share dropped by the U.S. smartphone subscribers by 4.7 percentage points to 25.7% in April compared with three months earlier, according to ComScore. None of this is good. And because the phones are old, it can 't convince the carriers to buy them as before, ASPs dryer. Matt Richman has a sting in the calculation of the phone ASP and figures it dropped from $ 302.26 (official, Q1) to $ 268.56 (est. Q2). "In 90 days, the ASP of RIM 's biggest product was more than 11%," he commented. I think he 's exaggerated it: things are' t quite as bad as this because it gives the playbook ASP of $ 554 ($ 50 less than the ASP one iPhone in the first quarter). However, RIM won 't have got something like this because the Playbook section doesn' t include 3G, which is in the ASP of the iPhone a bit. This reduces the ASP of the playbook, and thus raises the ASP of mobile phones. As a result, the ASP is called "300 $", but that may include the playbook.

However the root problem remains: RIM is trying to change horses in mid-stream. For that it needs to have its developers on board, writing apps that will be ready for the shift to QNX.

In my experience on RIM 's World app on his playbook, haven \ it' t exactly been beating the doors. In comparison, the BlackBerry App Experience is very fertile - something like 15,000 applications. ('D suggest that it' I \ s something like tenth in World app.)

What 's unclear whether written apps for BlackBerry is running QNX. The RIM developer site seems to make it either / or. If it 's no way to BB apps run on QNX, things get ugly indeed.

But this is the problem of abandonment of platforms. Nokia at least has the advantage that a large number of its users in emerging markets, the 125m or so Symbian smartphones that it 's for sale in the next few years will have some life. RIM is always squeezed, however, and doesn 't have a low-end phone business on how Nokia is dependent.

So we're going to see both Nokia and RIM come under incredible pressure over the rest of this year: Apple is going to have a new iPhone, Android is going to rage like a forest fire, and there doesn't seem to be anything to really stop either of them. Although Stephen Elop talked about the prospect of three ecosystems - Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, completely discounting RIM - it's looking like it'll be more like a two-horse race, at least temporarily, by the end of this year.

One analyst was trying to question the crucial topic, held in the profit Q + A (which is very painful to read because of the astonishingly evasive answers):

Q:

"I think the fundamental question that many of us and investors with this dispute, which helps RIMM back U.S. market share? But it seems that AT & T channel aligned strongly with Apple. And Verizon and Sprint seems be the approximation of Android. So, where is there the RIM? So the real question I have is what to motivate customers to buy a BlackBerry 6.0 product, instead of saying the new iPhone 4.0 or later Android products? "

Jim Balsillie:

"Well, I mean, be careful about your implicit assumptions in your question, or shall I say explicit assumptions in you questions. Yes, I think you guys just have to watch and see what the plans are.

I think it 'sa lot of implicit and explicit assumptions, and perhaps that should be checked. And part of it is the question of how powerful the innovation is a good question, what 's the timing there, it' sa good question. I think an important question is how much construction will cost orientation matter to a carrier, because 's just a huge problem across Europe and Asia, and will definitely be in Europe.

And I think how much does efficiency matter, and if you look at these price plans, I think you should say something. So I mean, look and see. I mean, we have unprecedented campaign and unit programs and commitments in our history. And I 'm just nothing more about our products and our starts to talk up their time.

And that, folks, is what a burning - smoldering - platform sounds like when you put it into words.

How about you? Is RIM still on the agenda? Your next purchase? Your last purchase?