A company looks to transform itself,
Share price drop taken as sign investors are skeptical Canadian company can bounce back
Research In Motion Ltd. is dead — long live BlackBerry.
At a splashy press event on shores of the Hudson River in Manhattan on Wednesday, chief executive Thorsten Heins introduced as expected the next generation of BlackBerry smartphones.
But it came out of the blue when he dropped the news that Canada’s most famous technology company will officially rebrand itself as simply BlackBerry.
Indeed, it was a day of new beginnings for RIM as the embattled BlackBerry maker attempts to sweep clear the last vestiges of its tarnished recent history and strikes out anew to re-establish itself as a serious player on the global smartphone stage.
On large video screens inside the keynote, the company plastered the slogan: “Re-designed. Re-engineered. Reinvented.”
“We have definitely been on a journey of transformation,” Heins said during his keynote address to several hundred media and corporate partners. “A journey to not only transform our business and our brand, but one which I truly believe will transform mobile communications into true mobile computing.”
That transformation begins with the debut of a pair of new BlackBerry devices that will be powered by BlackBerry 10, an oft-delayed platform first announced more than a year ago. The first device to go on sale will be the Z10, a full touch-screen smartphone that will be available in black or white.
On their technical and esthetic merits, the new devices got some serious love from reviewers, including David Pogue of the New York Times, who called the Z10 “lovely, fast and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas.”
BlackBerry shares tumbled 11.8 per cent to $13.86 in heavy trading in Toronto after the company’s long-awaited BlackBerry 10 debut, signalling that investors are skeptical the new models can win back customers from Apple Inc. and Google Inc.’s Android. In New York, it fell 12.01 per cent, or $1.88, to close at $13.78.
In addition to the Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s new name — its shares will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BBRY and on the Toronto Stock Exchange as BB — BlackBerry also officially unveiled its new BB10 software platform that will power the next generation of its smartphones.
The second device, dubbed the Q10 and featuring the company’s popular tactile keyboard, will launch later this spring.
The Z10 will go on sale in Canada on Feb. 5, and will cost $149.99 on a three-year contract from Canada’s major carriers, including Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc.’s Bell Mobility and Telus Corp.
However, company officials said the Z10 will not be available in the coveted United States market until “mid-March” — a decision that may have contributed to RIM’s shares falling more than 12 per cent on the Nasdaq in New York.
Heins said the Q10 model will not be available until April.
While some analysts praised the new devices, many remained unconvinced that the Z10 and Q10 will be enough for Blackberry to re-establish itself as a serious player in the market.
“At best, RIM’s new products will allow it to stop the bleeding and hold its market share,” said Charles Golvin, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.
“Our consumer data shows that, while more than half of U.S. BlackBerry owners plan to get a new phone in the next year, fewer than two in five of them say it will be another BlackBerry.”
BlackBerry has identified success the U.S. market as a key strategic piece to any turnaround hopes — the choice of New York as its launch venue was certainly not an arbitrary one. As part of that plan, the company is set to launch a major marketing initiative in the coming weeks that includes its first ever Super Bowl ad Sunday.
The company also announced that it had signed on singer Alicia Keys as global creative director.
But BlackBerry is also looking to its millions of users elsewhere in the world, tapping during the launch event into video feeds from big cities from across the globe.
BlackBerry may have opened the door to a potential comeback, but clearly it has only put one foot on the difficult path to regaining its former glory.