RIM Shares Surge Ahead of BB10 Launch

From DailyTech: While Research In Motion (RIM) has had a tough time keeping up with the likes of Apple and Google when it comes to smartphone software, the company seems to be having an easier time ramping up enthusiasm for its upcoming operating system and devices, BlackBerry 10 (BB10).

RIM shares spiked last week after Kris Thompson, a National Bank analyst, increased his price target on RIM shares from $12 to $15. This came shortly after Peter Misek, a Jefferies & Co. analyst, raised his rating and price target earlier in the week.

Why did Thompson raise his price target? Mainly because of the upcoming launch of BB10, which will be introduced on January 30, 2013.

"The new management team is executing by maintaining the BlackBerry subscriber base, managing costs and cash, and seemingly readying a February 2013 BB10 global platform launch," said Thompson.

As of Thursday, RIM shares rose 17.3 percent in Toronto. This was the largest percentage gain since April 2009.

This is great news for a company that seems to have had nothing but bad news over the last year or so. For four days in October 2011, BlackBerry users from around the world completely lost their messaging, browsing and email services. These three features are key to any business (or consumer) user, and proved to be a huge mark on RIM's record. RIM blamed the service troubles on an extremely critical network failure during a system upgrade.

Since then, RIM co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepped down and named the new CEO Thorsten Heins.

Several companies and government agencies, which were the main users of BlackBerry devices, have dropped their BlackBerrys for iPhones and Android-powered devices. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ditched their BlackBerrys in May in favor of iPhones, Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed suit in September.

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