Research in Motion (RIM) is a bit like the Roman Empire when it had two emperors – one in Constantinople and one in Rome.
It has two CEOs – and Jim Balsillie held a conference call yesterday following RIM’s latest financial result.
Jim Balsillie, the Caesar of the Western bit of RIM, was asked whether he was worried about Apple’s iPhone and the Palm Pre smartphone. The other Caesar is Mike Lazaridis.
Balsillie – probably not unexpectedly – said RIM doesn’t fret about those kind of things, but you can bet your bottom Canadian dollar he’s not indifferent to the competition.
RIM made a 53 percent increase in revenues for its financial Q1, and a profit of $643 million for the quarter, an increase from the profit of $483 million it made the year before.
The business model of RIM has rather changed because it added a heap of subscribers from small business and individuals, lured by a number of incentives and new machines.
The Blackberry, dubbed the Crackberry because of corporate souls’ addiction to reading mails and messaging, now appears to attract ordinary individuals too.
As an ordinary individual who has just been upgraded for free to a Blackberry Curve 8900, I’m becoming quite the addict too. I’m not trendy enough to have an iPhone and too dull to show Palm Precocity.
