High Hopes for BB10 Make RIM Stock Rise

In the midst of rumors and speculation surrounding RIM's upcoming BlackBerry 10 launch, the company's stock price has spiked.

Before this occurrence, RIM's stock price was suffering on the Nasdaq exchange in the $11-$12 range for weeks. Even still, that was not as bad as last September when the company's stock plummeted to an all-time low of $6.18. Everything changed on January 18 when the range soared to $15-$18 once Peter Misek, a Jefferies Group analyst, upgraded his stock recommendation from "hold" to "buy" and adjusted the stock's target price from $13 to almost $20. Soon thereafter, the stock spiked from $9.32 to $17.52 before it started to dip again after that.

According to several reports, Jefferies' change was based on assessments from the firm that RIM will be the enabler for a whole host of BlackBerry services and features on other mobile platforms such as Android and iOS.

In Misek's words, "this change we believe is unknown or not well understood but is important. In the future we think RIM will add bring-your-own-device sandboxing and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Android and iOS."

The stock is expected to have yet another boost as investors react to comments made by RIM's CEO Thorsten Heins in a recent interview for the German newspaper, Die Welt. Moreover, their stock price jumped 15 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange when Heins apparently stated that their "strategic review" could result in the licensing of RIM's BlackBerry 10 operating system and other various software or even in selling the handset business.

In the Die Welt interview, Heins relays Reuter's words that "the main thing for now is to successfully introduce Blackberry 10. Then we'll see."

However, Heins has been saying this same thing since he took charge more than a year ago and started the internal strategy review, essentially stating that they are not ruling anything out.

When a RIM spokesman was asked to comment on the Die Welt interview, the reply was simply "we do not have anything new to report on our strategic review at this time."

Even so, Ricardo Bilton from VentureBeat notes that to license the OS and spin off hardware sales "wouldn't make much sense." This is because RIM's ability to combine its own hardware and software, like Apple, would no longer be possible and, as Bilton states, "there's not a single smartphone maker for which BlackBerry 10 would be an attractive option."

RIM's newly unveiled smartphones will be the first to run the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which features a completely new UI design built above the popular QNX real-time operating system kernel, which was acquired by RIM in 2010. Currently, QNX is the foundation for the operating system in RIM's PlayBook tablet, and will be upgraded to the BlackBerry 10 production version.

Telekom Presse, a German website, recently posted a comparison between a BlackBerry Z10 smartphone running the BlackBerry 10 OS and the iPhone 5. They reported that the BlackBerry has a slightly larger screen with a longer and wider body, but is a bit thicker than the iPhone. Other speculations include a 1.5 HGz dual-core processor, LTE, 2GB of RAM, 1280 x 768 screen resolution, an 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera, 1800mAh battery, NFC, a microSD port, Bluetooth 4.0, and 16GB or 32GB of storage.

Telekom Presse also posted a video of this comparison on their website.

In the days before the unveiling on January 30, RIM is sorting out their final touches. One of these last-minute changes was their announcement of the online application store to be changed from BlackBerry App World to BlackBerry World. They also added that users would soon have the ability to download music and videos from the store.

In addition, RIM launched another "port-a-thon" in an attempt to persuade more software developers to create applications for their new OS. Developers are now being offered $100 for each of as many as 20 apps that RIM accepts for their virtual catalog. Their last port-a-thon, which occurred earlier this month, drew 15,000 submissions in less than two days.

Heins postponed the new OS release last year due to feedback from users and developers and based on his claims that it would be as solid as possible whenever it was released. This time around, however, the firmware, UI, extensive HTML5 support, fluid virtual keyboard, and their support for developers gained substantial praise at the BlackBerry World conference in May. (RP) Link