I would think the analyst community would approve the changes and even if not telling 'Joe Public' they are getting themselves and friends positioned for better days.

Well the new CEO is wasting no time saying things that apparently the whiners in chief don't want to hear.



But -- NOBODY comes into a company (or takes over from the former lead) and says "I'm selling the firm." You do that and demand instantly evaporates; you destroy the value that is there and thus depress the deal price by a monstrous amount.

This morning is the proverbial temper tantrum. The question is what the new CEO is actually executing on.

I don't see how Rimm can survive long term by itself as the market place has changed and Blackberry phones are yesterdays news. It is a shame because I have always thought of Blackberry equipment and software as top notch.

Chuck, RIMM is STILL driving higher sales everywhere but in the US. You need to stop listening to Cramer and actually read quarterly reports.

Yes, they got jumped by Apple and Android. QNX, however, is a game-changer -- their risks are execution in getting it out and not losing the application base.

The big issue nobody wants to deal with on mobiles is power budget. It's EVERYTHING. The situation at hand here is one where RIMM can slaughter people on power efficiency -- which is THE issue. Just look at the complaints all over the web on the iPhone 4s and the newer and nicer Android handsets. The complaints are CORRECT -- power issues are REAL and they're endemic in these handsets and the reason is ARCHITECTURAL in the operating system.

Both Android and the iPhone have responded to the performance constraints with bigger processors. Bad answer when you're using a general-purpose kernel and structure -- this is fine in a desktop connected to the wall, but is suicidal in a mobile device as that simply makes the power problem worse.

The correct answer is efficiency and real-time response so you can quickly do what you need to do in the architecture and return the CPU to deep sleep, cutting the CPU power drain to MICROAMPS. THAT is how you get power efficiency. QNX can deliver this to the mobile space.

Linux and the BSD kernel cannot.

Android's codebase is a ****ing MESS and Dalvik/Java is the common "fast codebanging beats efficient code." That's fine where (1) you don't care about code (and thus POWER) efficiency and (2) you don't care about DATA efficiency. The iPhone has the same basic problem in that the kernel is NOT real-time optimized nor can it be as it's an adaptation of a general-purpose environment, as is the Android Linux kernel.

This doesn't mean RIMM can't **** it all up as they certainly can, but they've got the correct path -- the risk is execution, not path.

mkt really shakin the tree on longs. would love to see a few huge buy programs kick in a reversal up.

I wonder how easily QNX could be adapted to run on top of iPhone or Android hardware. Of course, without apps to run on top of it...

Quite easily, but RIMM owns the QNX operating system now (they bought the company!) As such NOBODY ELSE in the cell space will have QNX unless they buy RIMM to acquire it.

We looked at this at VideOcart for the cart-based executive back when I was working there; the firm lost on the license costs (if I recall the ask in big-number quantity was $40/per), not on the technology. It is an EXCELLENT real-time kernel that has been around for a long time and it just plain WORKS. It has MAJOR advantages in that it was designed from the ground up to be a real-time executive and to run on limited hardware. I've programmed against it in the past and I like it a lot. In fact unless you're going to write your own executive (which is what we did at VideOcart) there's nothing else that comes close -- you just can't get there in the commercial "buy it off the shelf" space.

If they get the execution on this they're going to DESTROY everyone else on power budget and responsiveness-per-watt consumed out of the battery. That is a very, very big deal -- having a cellphone that lasts twice as long in your pocket between charges and yet is much snappier on the user interface is a HUGE advantage and none of the other players can compete in that space with their existing code base and technology.

Both Android and Apple have gone after this problem by adding more processor power and memory to the phone. Dual-core chips and similar are all the rage over the last year or so as a result. Yes, it "works" in that it makes the device nice and fluid (I love my Samsung SGS II) but it is VERY BAD for the power budget. In a desktop nobody cares, but in a handheld EVERYONE cares.

This is the secret sauce that RIMM has and nobody else does. IF they **** up the execution they're cooked but if not a year from now they'll have handsets that are just as fast and snappy as anything else in the market but last twice as long in the pocket.

That's a VERY big deal and is being entirely ignored.

(To put perspective on this if I actually USE my SGS II I get about three hours out of 1700mah battery before it dies, and Samsung had to go to a 1700mah battery to get there -- the older Galaxy phones were ~1400mah. This means I need to pocket a SECOND battery for a common 8 hour day if I actually intend to use (as opposed to leave on standby in my pocket) the device away from a power plug for a full work day. Apple, with it's "no user-swappable battery" design means when you're out, you're out -- literally. Now think about what happens to Samsung (and more importantly Apple with no user-swappable battery AT ALL) if THE standard for business handsets is a device with TWICE the duration.)

That's what RIMM potentially brings to the table with the OS changeover.

Karl, under what circumstances would you (or anyone else) really USE a phone for more than 3 hours a day, with no opportunity to charge it?

Also, I'm not really sure how QNX can influence the amount of power drawn by the screen, which is the biggest consumer when a phone is actually being USED.

-Uwe-

All the time Uwe.

Incidentally the power consumption of the backlight is highly dependent on the technology. LED-lit LCDs can be quite power efficient if inside where brightness does not have to be cranked way up. OLEDs are "backwards" in that only LIT pixels use power, so the "on white" background crap is MASSIVELY bad, but the converse is quite conservative in power use. Isn't it nice how web pages (and OS screens) tend to be light-colored backgrounds, thereby requiring lots of power for OLED displays?

CPU power consumption is quite considerable in modern phones. I've profiled several of the modern units and it's surprising how much energy it pulled by the Snapdragons and better when they crank their clock rate. The android governor (and iPhone scheduler) tries to manage processor states and clock to minimize this but in the end it comes down to cycles required to perform task "X".

Linux and BSD also both have power management issues in the general sense in that they require quite a bit of time to both go into deep sleep and wake up. This makes dropping the CPU to deep sleep states something done with caution lest user responsiveness be materially harmed; as a result most modern phones will not drop their CPUs when the screen is on at all even though the screen is in fact static at that instant and there is no data in active flow. There's really not much that can be done about this as its a kernel architecture issue -- those kernels were simply not designed from the outset for hard real-time and low power consumption.

QNX was.

Yup, I understand how the displays work. It seems Android is more oriented towards OLEDs, using dark or black backgrounds where it can, whereas iOS simply doesn't care.

KD wrote..

All the time Uwe.

This part I don't follow. About the only time I can envision wanting to USE my phone with the display on for 3 hours or more without a source of power available is on a long flight (like across the Atlantic or to the western US). If I'm in a car, the car provides power. If I'm in a building of any sort, there's usually a computer with a USB port or at least an AC outlet available somewhere. Of course if I was hanging out on the beach with TOS running...

-Uwe-

From what I can deduce, the Blackberry wasn't designed for kids standing around texting, so the stock has fallen out of favor. But, for business, it is the real deal. RIMM is down the road in Richardson about 3 miles from TI's main operation, so I would suspect there is a lot of back and forth between them. What people investing in this crap are going to find out is these items are about 2 or 3 years away from being a commodity and the front runners will go the way of DELL. Those that don't have a niche will merely be sets on the shelves. I have pretty large hands and I am not ready to start punching buttons in a hand held devise. Nor can I afford to break an Iphone or even a cheaper version and as a result have a $20 POC.

QNX is also POSIX compliant so I would think that making it run Apple/Android apps is theoretically possible. But how feasible is it to implement those APIs?

Since android apps are running inside a VM, the underlying operating system can be replaced in theory, blackberry already have an android vm working on their OS. Problem is not all android apps run purely in the VM environment, lots especially games execute native code for performance reasons. So this is where changing the underlying OS/kernel will break things.

iOS all the apps are written to run as native code, they wont work without some sort of recompilation/reworking.

I'm not sure if QNX is a big game changer, still a large percentage of power draw on a smart phone is the big screens they need to power. We need a breakthrough in display technology to get the power consumption down for people to be able to play with their phones all day long.

Besides I feel we're at a point where throwing more cores and higher clock speeds aren't significantly changing the user experience on smart phones, apps already run fast enough and more than likely are bottlenecked by the networks performance a lot of the time.

This is where further improvement in processors will translate into better battery drain performance, not just ramping clock speeds and hence power drain. Also the newer A15 designs bring significant improvements in IPC which also reduces the need to ramp clocks.

Blackberry is a business productivity tool, whereas the iPhone and the rest are consumer infotainment devices. After the music stops, there will still be a market for the former. As for the latter, at least in a pinch they will suffice as door stops.

Boy talk about Monday morning quarterbacks- every one of the business website 'gurus' is bashing rimm. Have they ever run a tech company ?
the street, minyanville, fool, 2 others I forget right now. The yhoo 'news' is a string of bashing articles. Not that I am listening to them buy stfu already if you're all gonna just be parrots.

Daughter has new IPhone..Girlfriend and her daughter have androids and now that you mention it...they are ALWAYS ****ing plugging their phones in!! At the house...In the boats...In the truck....I got 30 damn chargers around my place!! Power issue looks HUGE with these expensive ****s!!

I think this RIMM action also has a lot to do with a long standing feud between Prem Watsa and the naked short hedge fund thugs.

Quote:

QNX is also POSIX compliant so I would think that making it run Apple/Android apps

Playbook 2.0 (available Feb 4) will run ported android apps via qnx on the Playbook.


Oh and Karl thanks for your QNX opinions...i bought the stock shortly before you did and wondered if you had experience with it.

RIMM taken to the woodshed today.

RIMM is toast...looking to nibble long back around 12.50 area

There are only two reasons why the new CEO would come out and say they are pretty much staying the course:

1. he is insane
2. he knows what they have in development is a home-run and abandoning it would be suicide.

Pick one.

I'd love to see google buy rimm just to get the userbase, mail system and QNX.

Not that I particularly think it's going to happen, but if rimm gets sold, I'm sure there's gonna be some interest shown from google.

QNX being shoved in to replace Linux..... oh boy......

That would not be very hard to Google to do either, and would give them a two-forked path -- the "Free" Linux base for Android, or the "licensed" QNX one.

The QNX base would outperform and out-battery the freebie.

Google would probably only get 25% penetration with the "enhanced" version but good God that would be a ****LOAD of money.

That's pretty much what I was thinking... though I was thinking a bit more googlish about it.

Buy rimm, develop QNX and get a nicely working mobile OS.... Then drop linux and offer it up under a similar license (yes, for free.) In the background, start using that as a base to develop a full fledged desktop OS.

Keep developing phones and apps. Keep desktop OS licensed, but make it a tiny price compared to MS. Google is one of the only companies around that could have a chance at taking on MS in the desktop space and getting anything done within a few years.

I dunno... Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but I really don't like apple or MS, and this would go after them both, HARD.

Naw, why give the license away?

But yes, do it on a unified basis -- desktop, mobile, tablet.

This would CHAINSAW Microsoft.