Is this a good or bad time to have shares or be buying and selling shares in RIM ?
Shares have already dropped 4.8% in early trading this morning.
What will become of this once highly respected Canadian company?

I personally have no shares in RIM but my OH does in her portfolios.

Google "Nortel Networks" if you want to see how it plays out.

I would recommend carrying carrier shares over hardware manufacturers. The likes of Bell, Telus and Rogers aren't susceptible to hardware fashion trends like Apple, RIM, Nokia etc......

I have friends who invested in Nortel so I know all about that

Call me stupid or not I dont have investments so I dont worry about it.
Sure I have no chance of making good money on companies that perform well but I also dont worry about companies if I had money invested in them.

I shall just continue to save put my money in secure returns accepting very low interest rates and hopefully there will be my pension when I retire and failing that Im pretty well fooked

I learned years ago from Warren Buffet not to invest in stuff that I don't understand. I stay away from all tech stocks. Ditto mutual funds. I stick with so called Blue Chip stocks and they've served me quite well.

RIM are doomed unless they stop trying to compete with apple and android.

They have two big things going for them: blackberry messenger (which is very popular with teenagers and drug dealers) and keyboards are 1000's of times better than screens for typing.

If they get back to making communications devices rather than trying to compete with apple/android with media consumption devices it might work out for them, but that's not what they are doing so far.

I wouldn't invest in them myself.

You know that blue chip doesn't mean "not tech". You aren't going with stocks that you understand, you are going with stocks that are historically reliable. Nothing wrong with that mind - it's a good a strategy as any.

At the moment for me personally the downside risk for RIM is still too significant.

At the moment it is expected that sales and revenues will decline. Market share will be lost.

All of these are factors which will lead to a negative share price.
Yes they have a strong balance sheet with plenty of cash on hand but the market need to see RIM innovating. They need to be leading the way with new products growing market share.

Granted those things could come and if you buy now and are patient you could make a killing. However I would rather see what happens maybe miss out on the initial rise but buy in once it has been established that RIM have turned the corner. At the moment I'm just not sure that they will.

The other thing I don't like about them is the fact they don't pay a dividend. BCE, Telus, Rogers all pay good dividends with BCE still yielding 5.2%

Only thing I would be wary about Canadian telcoms stocks is that you must watch what the government are doing in relation to allowing foreign competition.

I don't own shares in any of the above mentioned companies.

The fact they did not compete with Apple/Android quick enough is the problem. The playbook was/is terrible and the first Torch was a joke. If they do not compete now then they are doomed. One thing they were great for was enterprise security so to that extent I agree to stop focusing so much on teens watching movies and concentrate on the corporate side of things.

My previous two companies and this one gave everyone Blackberry devices and for email they are great but start surfing the web on them and I want to throw mine out of the window. It was a very frustrating user experience.

A lot hinges on the new OS due early this year and if Android apps will be available.

Well, yes they tried to compete and failed. The failure was obviously going to happen because they went after apple on apples terms. It's possible, but rim hasn't got deep enough pockets.

For the blackberry brand to survive it needs to stop trying to compete directly with apple - it should focus on what it's good at. Anyone who's used a touch screen for writing more than short sentences at a time knows that it's utterly shit compared to a blackberry with a keyboard.

Personally I think it's too late for rim and they are just reacting in panic rather than trying to get things right. They should get out of the OS market and go with android. BB communications hardware and apps (bbm, secure integration with corporate email) + android OS would be a winner I think. At least then they wouldn't have to develop a web browser - something they are pretty crap at.

I totally agree - they need to go with Android for any chance of a comeback. Just like I used to love Nokia - if Nokia went with Android and came up with a killer handset then I would be interested.

No room for more OS's in the market other than iOS and Android now though saying that, Windows Mobile next offering will be very interesting.

Buy Kodak!

Totally agree, and the reason why I'd think twice about selling their stock

As far as i know they are the only smart phone system that meets the federal governments security requirements and the main reason big business IT sticks with them..
They do security way better than anybody else
If Google or apple crack that nut or even suggest they might be getting closer, then I’d call a broker

The PlayBook is actually a great device. The main problem was the fact it was put to market around 12 months early. QNX was a good purchase by rim and the power is awesome.

RIM should not go fully android but it's a clever move with them allowing android alps to be easily ported to run on the QNX system. It is highly likely that this will be the case on the new BB10 phones.

It's one to watch.... Not to buy.

A bit like Andy Carroll or Fernando Torres then

My OH had her playbook for about 2 weeks problems with bridging etc ended up taking it back.

I agree - I've a dozen or more tablet devices (work related reasons), and the Playbook has the potential to be one of the better ones. Having said that, I couldn't justify spending my own money on any of them.