RIM Releases Q4 Earnings Report; Balsillie Resigns As Director, CTO And COO Both Given The Boot

With expectations at an all-time low and analysts lowering estimates left and right, Research In Motion on Thursday reported its results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012. RIM posted a surprising beat in the third fiscal quarter when it managed earnings of $1.27 per share on $5.2 billion in sales. At the same time, however, the Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry maker issued worse than expected fourth-quarter EPS guidance of between $0.80 and $0.95, and it said revenue would likely fall between $4.6 billion and $4.98 billion. RIM has now confirmed adjusted net income of $0.80 per share, on revenue of $4.2 billion. Read on for more.

RIM said it shipped 11.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and more than 500,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter. Smartphone shipments came in at the low end of its forecast of between 11 million and 12 million units. Wall Street was expecting earnings of $0.81 per share and $4.54 billion in revenue. In the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, RIM posted a profit of $710 million, or $1.27 per share, on $4.08 billion in sales.

The company confirmed that RIM co-founder Jim Balsillie will step down as director and leave the company.

RIM is also expected to confirm during its earnings call that multiple top executives will be laid off as part of a significant corporate restructuring. The news was first reported by The Globe and Mail.

The struggling smartphone vendor said it is facing significant challenges, and it is currently reviewing strategic opportunities and potential partnerships. RIM also said that its first BlackBerry 10 smartphone is on track to launch in late 2012.

Best Buy To Cut 400 Jobs, Close 50 Stores Nationwide

The move to cut 400 jobs and close 50 stores nationwide was announced alongside Best Buy's Q4 earnings report, which includes action items aimed to trim $800 million in costs by 2015. The closings will no-doubt come along with staffer reductions, some of whom could be transferred to one of 100 Best Buy Mobile "small format stand-alone stores" set to launch next year. While an unfortunate move for some customers and employees, it does show some foresight on behalf of BBY management, who likely recognize a continuing shift to online purchasing, and a greater emphasis on mobile devices, which require significantly smaller showrooms, cost less to ship and could offer greater margins to boot.

Former CO-CEO And Director Jim Balsillie Leaves RIM

RIM’s former co-CEO and current director of the board Jim Balsillie is leaving RIM. “As I complete my retirement from RIM, I’m grateful for this remarkable experience and for the opportunity to have worked with outstanding professionals who helped turn a Canadian idea into a global success,” Balsillie said in a statement.

Conversion Kit Lets You Push Your RAZR To The Maxx For $110



The Cellphone Repair Shop is hawking a kit that will outfit your plain old RAZR with genuine Motorola RAZR Maxx parts for $110, battery included of course. The site recommends that you send your handset to its repair facility for "professional installation," but we're sure some of you are up to the challenge. How about it, RAZR owners, are any of you tinkerers going to try and Maxx-out your handset?

Sprint Won't Be Releasing New WiMAX Devices

Sprint has changed its stance on WiMax devices and no longer plans to bring new WiMax gear to the market, said Bob Azzi, Sprint's senior vice president of networks. Earlier this year, Sprint said that it would offer both CDMA/WiMax and CDMA/LTE devices through 2012, and that it would stop selling WiMax devices by the end of the year. Azzi's comments reflect a change in the company's position. 


Azzi noted that the company will use the G-Block of its 1900MHz spectrum to launch LTE by the middle of the year. "We are wrapping up final field integration tests," Azzi said. "The technology works and delivers more benefits than we expected." Sprint will have 15 LTE devices available by the end of the year, including smartphones, tablets, and mobile hotspots. The company also plans to refarm portions of its 800MHz spectrum for use with LTE. It is currently transitioning its iDEN customers to its CDMA network, and will eventually use that freed-up spectrum for LTE. 


Considering that Sprint is planning to roll out LTE service by mid-2012 and will be releasing around 15 LTE-capable devices by the end of the year, it makes sense that the carrier would decide to cease launching new WiMAX products. Sprint has yet to say when it'll be releasing its new LTE devices like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper, saying only that availability information will be revealed closer to launch, but a recent rumor claimed that the Galaxy Nexus could be here as soon as the middle of April. How many of you are considering checking out one of Sprint's LTE devices once they finally hit?

Sam Greenblatt Out As webOS CTO

Today we've learned that webOS CTO Sam Greenblatt is transitioning away from his leadership position within webOS. We contacted HP and they confirmed that Greenblatt will no longer be in charge of webOS, though they offered no hints as to who might be taking the lead:

"Sam Greenblatt is moving from webOS to a new role at HP and will continue to assist the team during the transition. The Open webOS project is on schedule and HP remains committed to the roadmap announced in January."

Sources indicate to us that developers within HP were frustrated by the pace of the roadmap, and that there has been considerable head-butting since Greenblatt took the lead of webOS just a few short months ago. For what it's worth, HP has delivered on Enyo 2.0, QtWebKit, the Linux Standard Kernel, and the Nyx hardware abstraction layer.

Before coming to webOS, Greenblatt had been "VP of Strategic Program, Strategy & Corporate Development", a job title that tells us pretty much nothing, but still sounds like something that would mesh well with leading a group like webOS. Additionally, at least according to his LinkedIn profile, Greenblatt also currently holds the CTO of Enterprise Global Distribution position at HP, so he'll still have something to do once the transition to whoever is new is complete. Of course, the last webOS leader that transitioned to another position within HP eventually transitioned to a hammock in Mexico.

HP Chief Strategy Office Bill Veghte is still in place, guiding the webOS effort from above, as are the remnants of the Open webOS staff after the most recent round of dismissals. Drama like this is never good for any group, and it's especially not good right now after all of the hits webOS has taken in the past five months.

Quickoffice Launches Its Own Cloud Service Connect

Everyone’s about cloud these days so why would Quickoffice be any different. It isn’t and it’s launching a cloud service of its own Connect by Quickoffice, allowing users to access and search across a number of cloud services and devices, regardless of operating system. At the same time, the solution provides users with a “fluid” online and offline document creating, editing, syncing and sharing experience.

Device wise, Quickoffice users can access files on a Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone and tablet. As for the supported services, aside from Quickoffice’s own service, Connect also works with a number of popular third-party solutions, including Basecamp, Box, Catch, Dropbox, Egnyte, Evernote, Google Docs, Huddle, Microsoft SkyDrive, Springpad, SugarSync and WebDev. Finally, you can share your files via social networks like Docstoc, Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Scribd, Twitter and Yammer.

Connect comes with a native mobile application for iOS and Android, a PC or Mac desktop client and web portal for universal document and account management. The service automatically syncs documents to ensure the latest version is always available on any device.

When it comes to pricing, Quickoffice is offering Connect in three flavors: Basic, Premium and Professional, with the last mentioned costing $69.95 per year. During the limited time, Connect Premium will be available for a discounted price of $19.99/year (regular price is $44.99)

Grab A Refurbished Kindle Fire For $139 Today Only UPDATE: SOLD OUT

Amazon has a stock of refurbished Kindle Fires up for grabs on their site. The 7″ e-Reader/tablet hybrid is the second best-selling tablet behind Apple’s iPad, and at the extremely discounted price of $139 is a no-brainer for anyone who has an investment in Amazon’s ecosystem. The Kindle Fire allows you to consume Kindle Books and Amazon Video on Demand, and enjoy thousands of Android applications featured on Amazon’s own app store.

If you want to score a refurbished Kindle Fire for $60 off the $199 retail price, you’ll have to act fast. The deal is one of Amazon’s featured Gold Box deals, and will run out at the end of the day today or as long as supplies last. We expect these things will sell out fairly quickly, so be sure to get an order in soon if you’ve got your eyes on this device.

Update: as of 3:13 Amazon has sold out of there refurbished Kindle Fire for $139

T-Mobile HTC One S May Launch April 22nd

The HTC One S may be going on sale in some parts of Europe as early as next Monday, but the phone's U.S. launch might not be far behind. ​TmoNews​ obtained the T-Mobile internal screenshot you see above, which references a launch date of April 22, just over three weeks from now. The image shows the T-Mobile version of the device, alongside a countdown clock displaying the purported date.

Google Drive To Be Released First Week Of April

After many false alarms, Google's cloud storage service has been coming for multiple years. The latest rumors came almost two months ago, when we found that a Dropbox-like service would be offered by the search giant. But today's unofficial news is a bit more exciting, as it states that "Google Drive," as it's being called, will be released "sometime during the first week of April."

This comes from GigaOM, a renowned tech news site, and they claim that the sources giving them this info are "well-placed and familiar with Google's plans."  As it goes with many new rumors, this one comes with a bit of extra details about the service.

The sources affirm that Google will be offering 1 GB of free storage, and charge for extra storage space. This comes as a surprise, since Google usually offers its services for free, or at least very affordable compared to the competition. But in this case, Dropbox would have the advantage by offering 2 GB for free. Not to mention Box's and Amazon Cloud Drive's free 5 GB.

None of this is set in stone just yet, as it is still a rumor. Prices for extra storage are still unknown, and that is where Google might have the advantage. Extra GBs could be more affordable than the competition, so it'll be interesting to see where they go with that.

In addition, it is mentioned that this service will launch for Google Apps customers, and will look much like Google Docs in regards to the interface. The search giant has also developed an API for developers to be able to make use of Google Drive.

The odds of this rumor coming to life are unknown, as they usually are. But we know Google must be getting ready for it, so we'll keep our eyes peeled. One of our readers even found a hidden "Add to my Drive" button within the Gmail coding.

This means that the service could be coming very soon. Maybe even early next month, as this rumor states. As always, take it with a healthy amount of salt until we get some more news. For now, the best idea is to stay tuned and hope to see this come to life soon, and with better offerings.

Recently found Updates

The guys from Talk Android have received a nice leaked image of what seems to be the PC client for Google Drive. The website's sources claim the same, but they state that the date of release has been changed to "the week of April 16th." But what makes this screen shot special is that it goes against GigaOM's claims that users will get 1 GB of free storage.

This image (along with the sources) confirms that users will get 2 GB of free storage, instead. This sounds much more enticing, but as mentioned above, it still does not beat the competition.