RIM: Berries Dying on the Vine

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The days of an independent Research In Motion (RIMM) appear to be numbered. Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) have destroyed RIM and Nokia (NOK). Nokia is barely able to keep the lights on, and RIM's chart is equally painful to look at.

On August 2011, I wrote an article asking if RIM can survive another year. I believed the odds favored a buyout. By November 2011, I wrote a follow-up article that in a nutshell stated the Apple and Sprint contract will force a RIM takeover.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins

After Thursday's earnings release and conference call, I am more convinced than ever that RIM will soon either sell off key parts or be bought out entirely. When a house burns down, you don't try to take the remaining pieces and build again. You start fresh with a new foundation and new building materials.

Customers and investors could have lived with a loss and writeoffs of $1.33 a share. They could have even lived comfortably with 78 million subscribers. Unfortunately, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins delivered the one piece of news investors cannot live with -- a delay in the new BlackBerry 10 until 2013.

Slow down a minute: Didn't we just see a preview of BlackBerry 10 not too long ago at BlackBerry World in May? Now Heins is stating RIM has porting issues to BB10 a few weeks before we would expect ramped up activity with BB10.

RIM: Get Set for More Disappointment >>

Heins, on one hand, is stressing the delay was "not related to quality or functionality," and on the other advising the delays are from porting code and will take longer than six months to solve. Well, which is it? If the platform has the desired quality and functionality, why is BB10 not getting released in 2012?

Many global carrier partners "actually prefer a Q1 launch," Heins stated Thursday. That may be all well and true, but investors prefer to know how grim things are as soon as possible. Additionally, investors prefer a sooner rather than later launch after enduring several previous postponements.

When sooner rather than later is the difference between reaching the holiday season or not, the situation becomes increasingly exigent.

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