

The Present and The Future (continued) - cwan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/the-present-and-the-future-continued.html

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bryanlarsen
A P/E of 12 does not necessarily mean that investors think RIM will have
steady profits. It seems more likely to me that's the balance point between
the bulls and the bears.

The author pointed out the bear story for RIM. The bullish story for RIM is
straightforward too: they're obviously working on a QNX-based rewrite of their
OS. The blackberry platform has enough advantages, devoted followers and
hasn't lost too much momentum, so they just need a solid offering with slight
advantages and disadvantages compared to Android & iOS to do well. Considering
how well they're doing even given how crappy BBOS is, if they can close that
gap, they'll be fine. And basing it on QNX is a darn good start.

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dstein
I imagine after the Kik incident any startup that had social mobile apps has
probably already written RIM off as a platform worth developing for. If RIM's
strategy is to "scare developers" into building apps for their platform then
they have already lost.

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davi
_As myspace has shown, when platforms stagnate they can easily fall apart and
the decline can be fast and devastating_

This gave me an image of a large mass of pack ice floating on polar seas -- it
occupies a vast area, you don't want to mess with it, but when conditions
turn, the whole thing can very quickly break apart and dissolve.
(<http://www.igsoc.org/annals/44/a44a057.pdf>)

