RIM and Nokia were leaders once, in the creation of smart, attractive, affordable and useful mobile devices. But as so many have warned, they became wedded to what worked. That is a natural business instinct. Double down on the winning bet. But it can, and in these cases, did lead them astray.
Astray, not in the sense that they wandered off into unprofitable or bizarre directions, but that it caused them to lose focus on the nature of the core benefit they were providing. They thought they were in the handset business. What others might have called the cell phone business. But they were in the mobility business and they just didnt understand the implications.
It must be said, however, that both companies sought advice early. They were both paranoid and prescient. They got that there were threats and opportunities beyond the horizon. They wanted help identifying both and sought to get ahead of the trend, whatever it might be.
That they couldnt contains a lesson for everyone involved in making money from technology and fashion and finance and a host of other occupations that rely on change. Human disagreements. Institutional turf battles. Strategic uncertainty. Financial imperatives. And the emergence of new imperatives - like design (who knew?). All contributed to the declines in question.
And lest anyone cluck their tongue, it may well happen to others who now appear unassailable. Microsoft. Google. Even Apple is being challenged at the height of its powers by those who question whether its pre-eminence can be sustained.
Coming back when one is behind is hard. History teaches us that the odds are almost insurmountable, especially in a world where the narrowing of hardware platforms and software applications favor the scalable. That may well change. But for now, the lesson may be that all the intelligence and good intentions in the known universe can not overcome the imagination. JL
Tiernan Ray reports in Barrons:
Some turkeys got a reprieve last week.
Shares of Research In Motion (ticker: RIMM) and Nokia (NOK), which had been down 37% and 43% for the year, respectively, until last week, surged by 27% and 29% during the abbreviated four-day holiday session ending Friday. In the case of RIM and Nokia, both had been pretty much left for dead this year, but they've enjoyed new life since the Street decided to believe the duo has a chance at a comeback in 2013.
RIM, at a recent price of $11.66, is up 87% from its 52-week low of $6.22, while Nokia, at $3.56 for each of its American Depositary Receipts as of Friday's close, has more than doubled from its low of $1.63.
Can such magical rebounds continue into the new year?
Yes, they probably can.
There is nothing to say that either company will succeed in the brutally competitive world of mobile technology, where Apple (AAPL), Samsung Electronics (005930.Korea), and Google (GOOG) dominate by dint of vast resources, tremendous market share, and little of the baggage Nokia and RIM carry.
But stocks such as RIM and Nokia aren't weighed down by the burden of actual results. They aren't investments, per se, they are pure speculation that has at least a couple more months before reality hits. Therefore, their shares can continue to float upward until the yay-sayers are proven wrong.
Both stocks are pegged to the popularity of new devices that could slow the decay in their crumbling smartphone businesses.
In the case of RIM, it is scheduled to unveil on Jan. 30 a new operating system for its BlackBerry hand-held, called BB10, along with two new devices running the software.
Early reports indicate these machines will be nothing like the failed Storm touch-screen clunkers, but rather swift, streamlined hand-helds that come closer to the magic of Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line of phones based on Google's Android software.
In Nokia's case, it's hoping to turn around a year-over-year plummet from third place to seventh place in global smartphone sales as of the third quarter. That effort hinges on sales of Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone operating system. Nokia just started selling a handset called the Lumia 920, running the latest version of Windows Phone, in the last month or so.
THE FIRST THING ONE NOTICES after a brief review of the financial past of both companies, as well as the projections for the near future, is how far each company has fallen, but also how each could fare better with even a mild turnaround.
After a sales decline of 12% last year at Nokia, revenue will probably fall 22% this year, according to FactSet's consensus projection by analysts.
From an adjusted profit of 38 cents per ADR last year, Nokia may report a net loss of about that much this year.
Sales aren't expected to pick up until 2014, and just a paltry 2.5% at that. But with a smaller sales decline of 2.3% next year, Nokia could report a much smaller loss of just six cents per ADR.
Likewise, RIM's revenue is projected to drop by 40% in the fiscal year ending in February, worse than last year's 7.4%, while the company may swing from an adjusted profit of $4.20 to a loss of $1.29.
Still, even a mild turnaround next year could help profits dramatically for RIM: The Street sees a 2.2% rise in revenue next year, but net losses may dramatically improve to just 56 cents.
The second thing you notice is how tenuous those potential rebounds are, at least as the analysts describe them.
THE PROXIMATE CAUSE OF RIM'S surge last week was two notes trumpeting a slightly better outlook. One was from Kris Thompson of Canada's National Bank Financial, who had already raised his rating on the stock to an Outperform from Market Perform about two months ago. Thompson's update, unleashed late Wednesday afternoon, said that things could be a bit better next fiscal year if BB10 helps drive sales of BlackBerry devices from perhaps 28.5 million this year to 35.5 million next year.
Wrote Thompson, "If we're even halfway correct with our $2.3 billion Ebitda forecast, and management can stabilize the business on a recurring basis, then we're off to the races with a current enterprise value of just over $3 billion."
But another analyst came away with a somewhat different view. Jefferies' Peter Misek, who had maintained an Underperform rating on RIM stock for a year now, on Tuesday upgraded the stock to a Hold.
Misek's mixed reasoning: Although BB10 has only a 20% to 30% chance of success in smartphones, in his view, the payoff in that event could be huge.
A success with BB10 could make RIM a $43 stock, Misek estimates.
THINGS WERE SIMILARLY wishful for Nokia.
On Thursday morning, Helsinki-based Ilkka Rauvola, who follows Nokia shares for Danske Bank Markets, raised his rating from Sell to Buy on Nokia.
His reasoning is that the chatter from the field suggests demand for Nokia's Lumia 920 is better than expected, with reports here and there of stores selling out of the first batch.
How much better? Hard to say, Rauvola told me. These are initial supplies that are limited in quantity, and it is impossible to say if Nokia is on a path to sell millions of Lumias initially, or merely hundreds of thousands.
(By way of comparison, Apple sold five million of its iPhone 5 in the first week they went on sale in October, so the bar is set high in the smartphone world.)
The point, Rauvola tells me, is that demand for the phones, regardless of actual volume, is "going in the right direction," versus an absolutely disastrous view of Nokia of late.
This isn't investing, it's gambling. When the music stops, sometime next spring, as first-quarter smartphone sales are reported, reality could set in for both companies.
I don't think either one stands much of a chance over the long haul; they've simply fallen too far behind Google and Apple and Samsung to ever matter much again, regardless of how good their devices are.
But until the music does stop, such open-ended speculation will likely continue and could probably be good for a trade, at least for a few months.
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