It’s quite evident that Research In Motion is in a downward spiral that it just can’t seem to get out of. In its latest quarter, the Canadian BlackBerry maker lost $518 million and suffered a 33 percent drop in revenue. The overall revenue at $2.8 billion was considerably lower than what analysts had predicted – $3.1 billion. According to RIM, 7.8 million BlackBerry phones and just 260,000 Playbooks were sold in last quarter – a pitiful number for a company that once led the smartphone numbers game.
The first BlackBerry 10 OS based phone which RIM is heavily banking on and which was to slated to come out towards the end of this year, has been pushed again to the first quarter of 2013. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said that the company would release fewer models than it did in the past and it would launch a BB10 model with a physical keypad along with a touchscreen one. “I will not deliver a product to market that does not meet the needs of our customers,” he said. RIM had first showcased the BlackBerry 10 OS back in May at BlackBerry World.
In order to cut down on costs, RIM announced that it would be cutting around 5000 jobs which would save it around $1 billion in operating costs.
According to news agency Reuters the RIM board is under pressure to tie-up with Microsoft and sell Windows phone OS based devices.
Situation is looking quite grim for RIM. Will the delay around the first BlackBerry 10 OS sporting phone ring the death knell for RIM? Is a tie-up with Microsoft the only logical thing left for RIM to do in the current scenario? Only time will tell.