Through the never-ending stream of bad numbers Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion Ltd. has had to weather in the last year and a half, the company and its successive CEOs have clung to one as evidence of the BlackBerry's continued relevance in the
smart phone market.
Whenever faced with declining revenue numbers, or plummeting market share, the talisman RIM representatives would cling to was always the subscriber base. That number of
BlackBerry subscribers -- 78 million at last count -- and its continuing growth was trotted out at every interview, every analyst day, every shareholder meeting.
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If that's the case, there's a last-straw element to RIM's story to shareholders. Without the stable and growing subscriber base, RIM's defences come down to:
* BlackBerry 10: Much-touted, much-delayed and completely unproven but for the odd preview, RIM has to rely on the new BlackBerry operating system to staunch the flow of users flocking to competing devices. It remains to be seen how long investors will buy that story.
*The Fusion mobile device management platform: RIM had early-mover advantage with this platform to manage multiple mobile device types. Fusion received almost no marketing support, even as new CEO Thorsten Heins proclaimed the company was going to focus on its enterprise roots. Advantage squandered, Fusion is just one name in an increasingly crowded
MDM landscape.