Is Rimageddon Coming?

Congratulations are in order as Research In Motion’s Blackberry App World has finally reached 1 billion downloads last week. For those who don’t follow tech news, RIM has been struggling for the past several months (understatement). Approximately three years ago, RIM shares were trading at $150.00 apiece; currently they are trading at roughly $26.00.

Shareholders must be ripping their hair out!

Although we are happy for RIM, we cannot side track from the fact that it took about two years to accomplish this whereas, Apple’s app store has a total of 15 billion downloads to date and hit it’s 1^st billion in just nine months. Google’s Android has a total of 4.5 billion downloads to date.

In the latest shareholders meeting, RIM confirmed that it is planning on releasing seven new phones in the upcoming months. SEVEN? RIM hasn’t stated what new smartphones they will be launching but they are most likely to be upgraded models. The two most talked-about Blackberries to be released are the Bold 9900 and the Torch 2 (9860), as for the other five, we will just have to wait and see.  Also, RIM announced that the new Blackberry OS 7 would be the OS running on the Bold 9900.

We are thrilled to see the new operating system but rumor has it that current blackberry users would not be able to upgrade to OS 7. Let us hope that this is just a rumor.

But could this be the beginning of a comeback or the coming of Rimageddon?

Most will agree with the latter, it’s just too difficult to stay optimistic! Just a couple of days ago, RIM announced they plan to lay off 2,000 employees, which is equivalent to approximately 11% of their workforce. The intended purpose for this is to help RIM achieve higher growth, realign strategic objectives, and restructure senior management. These lay-offs will allow RIM to reduce costs and supposedly, introduce products to the market in a more timely manner (i.e. faster).

The next couple of months should be exciting.

Good or bad move by RIM?

Good luck RIM, you’ll need it.

Apple has finally announced their much anticipated announcement to unveil their “latest creation”.  The date has been set to January 27th and it’s taking place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.  Here’s the invitation that has been put out:

We’re going to have to wait until next to see what Apple has up their sleeves.  Will it be the new Mac Tablet or perhaps the new iPhone 4G.   Until then enjoy this Cartoon from Rob Cottingham’s Noise to Signal: