Research in Motion is world's fastest growing company: Fortune

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) tops Fortune magazine's list of the world's 100 fastest-growing companies.

It is the first time that Fortune has opened its list of the top 100 fastest growing companies to businesses from around the world.

Apple, which is BlackBerry makers' main rival in the global smart phone market, is way down the list at 39th spot.

Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc., which is the world's biggest fertiliser company, is another Canadian firm among the top 10 in the Fortune list.

Among the top 10 are also two companies from China -- Sohu.com and Shanda Interactive Entertainment.

Others in the top 10 are California-based Sigma Designs, Ebix of Atlanta, Texas-based DG Fastchannel, CF Industries of Illinois, Arena Resources of Oklahoma and Massachusetts-based Bruker Corp.

BlackBerry maker RIM currently controls 56 percent of the smart phone market in the US.

Based at Hamilton near Toronto, RIM has just reported net revenue of $3.42 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2010 -- up 53 percent from the same period last year.

Defying market forecasts, it has posted a record quarterly profit of $643 million as against $482.5 million during the same period last year.

The wireless communication giant, which has currently about 12,000 employees on its rolls, has also extended its market from corporate types to common consumers.

Giving credit to them for this, Fortune magazine says RIM co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are "more than holding their own" against Apple head Steve Jobs.

Apple had mounted a huge challenge to the BlackBerry maker last year by launching its iphones.

However, Fortune warns RIM that competition is "getting increasingly stiff" with changing consumer demands.

Currently, BlackBerry has a subscription base of about 29 million in about 150 countries.

At about $80, RIM shares are still almost half of the $150-peak they touched early last year.

To be eligible for the list, foreign companies should be traded on a US exchange and file quarterly reports. Fortune ranks the companies on the basis of three years of revenue and profit growth and total return.

For BlackBerry, it is globalisation abroad and protectionism at home

Preaching globalization abroad and protectionism at home. That seems to be the mantra of Canadian corporates.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) may have worldwide operations but at home it is preaching economic natonalism.

Shut out of the auction for Toronto-based Nortel's wireless business last month, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie sought government intervention to stop its sale to foreigners in "national interest".

The reason why the BlackBerry maker was shut out of the auction was its refusal to sign the non-disclosure agreements with Nortel which is selling its businesses piece by piece after suffering losses of $ 5 billion last and operating under bankruptcy protection since January.

The BlackBerry maker's nationalist card seems to be working.

After Swedish Ericsson's winning Nortel's wireless technology (called long-term evolution or LTE) with its $1.3 billion bid July 28, corporate and political pressure has forced the Canadian government to review the sale.

A Canadian parliamentary committee will hold an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the sale. The committee will hear top representatives from RIM, Ericsson, Nortel and industry about the implications of the sale for Canada.

Reports say opposition MPs would try to pressure for the Tory government to spike the sale to Ericsson.

The panel discussion follows its last year's rejection of the foreign takeover of space assets of Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) in the name of loss of key technology to foreigners, Canadian taxpayers' investment in the company, and national security.

The parliamentary committee will question Ericsson Canada president Mark Henderson about the implication for Canada of this sale. BlackBerry co-CEO and founder Mike Lazaridis may be asked to explain what implications the sale to a foreign company will have for Canada's technology sector and national security.

The opposition calls the deal "murky" and wants the government to safeguard national interest.

The same committee had last year rejected the sale of space assets of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd (MDA) to America's Alliant Techsystems, forcing the government to stop foreign takeover a Canadian company for the first time in decades.

Canadian multinationals may be on the prowl for acquisitions abroad, but at home they shamelessly preach protectionism.

BlackBerry to pay $267 million to settle patent lawsuit

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) will pay $267.5 million to California-based Visto Corp to settle a patent infringement lawsuit.

Visto, which is a wireless e-mail company, had slapped the lawsuit on RIM in a Texas court for patent infringements in 2006.

In its lawsuit, the US company had said that RIM was using its technology without authorisation. Visto's software is used Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel Corp.

But RIM hit back, saying that Visto's patents involved no new inventions. It also filed its counterclaim, leading to a war of lawsuits between the two companies in the US, Canada and Europe.

But RIM and Visto reached an agreement Thursday, with the BlackBerry maker agreeing to pay $267.5 million to settle the case and use Visto's patents in the future.

"The key terms of the settlement involve RIM receiving a perpetual and fully-paid license on all Visto patents, a transfer of certain Visto intellectual property, a one-time payment by RIM of US $ 267.5 million and the parties executing full and final releases in respect of all outstanding worldwide litigation,'' said a statement by the BlackBerry maker here.

The global wireless giant said the settlement will be completed by July 20, 2009.

This is the second time in three years that RIM has to pay a huge amount to settle a patent dispute with another company.

In 2006, the Waterloo-based Canadian giant had paid a whopping $612.5 million to settle a patent dispute with NTP Inc., a Virginia-based patent-holding company.

It had filed the lawsuit against RIM in 2001, claiming that the BlackBerry maker used its patents without authorization to create the push e-mail platform on its smart phones.

After a five-year legal battle, RIM paid $612.5 million to the American company "in full and final settlement of all claims against RIM, as well as for a perpetual, fully-paid up license going forward.''

BlackBerry posts $643 mn profit

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has reported a profit of $643 million for the first quarter of the year, compared to $518.3 million posted during the previous quarter.

However, its quarterly revenue was slightly dwon at $3.42 billion from $3.46 billion in the previous quarter. But it is still up 53 percent from $2.24 billion during the same period last year.

BlackBerry added about 3.8 million net new subscribers accounts during the quarter, taking its total subscriber base to nearly 28.5 million.

During the quarter, RIM sold over 7.8 million smart phones that accounted for 81 percent of its revenue. Services accounted for 13 percent of the revenue.

The wireless communications giant, which is based in Waterloo near here, forecast the second quarter revenue in the range of $3.45 billion and $3.70 billion.

RIM also expected to add up to more than 4.1 million new subscribers in the next quarter.

"We are starting fiscal 2010 with strong financial performance and impressive market share gains, including a 55 percent share of the US smart phone market according to IDC's latest estimate," RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said.

"The industry leading BlackBerry product portfolio is driving strong customer demand around the world and our penetration of new market segments continues to expand.

"We are particularly excited about the strength of our product portfolio for fiscal 2010 and we are looking forward to driving continued growth and profitability in our business throughout the remainder of the year," he added.

But the better-than-expected results by the BlackBerry maker failed to enthuse investors as its stock slipped more than four percent Friday.

The RIM shares closed down $3.83 at $82.97 on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Last week, the company's stock traded at $95.

RIM shares had sunk to $44.60 during the first week of December. Since then, the company's stock has almost doubled.

RComm to roll out BlackBerry services at Rs 299/month

With a view to expanding its reach to wider market, Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RComm) today said it will offer BlackBerry services to its customers at Rs 299 a month under 'Reliance E-Lite' plan.

''Through 'Reliance E-Lite', we will extend our reach to a wider market by providing an affordable and high quality of service to consumers,'' Reliance Communications Head (Wireless Data Business) Vrajesh Shelat said in a statement.

The company, in collaboration with Research In Motion (RIM), will provide its customers an unlimited access to Blackberry services, including email and instant messaging (IM) on their phones.

The services will be offered on BlackBerry models such as 8703e, 8830, Curve 8300, Curve 8900, Pearl 8110 and Pearl 8130.

Now print from your BlackBerry anywhere!

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) has announced a strategic tie-up with Hewlett Packard (HP) to provide "a portfolio of solution"' to businesses on its smartphones.

Under the tie-up, Hewlett Packard will unveil HP CloudPrint to enable BlackBerry users to print emails, photos, web pages and other documents from their smartphones to the nearest printer - at home, in the office or on the road.

The California-based PC maker will also unveil HP Operations Manager for BlackBerry Enterprise Server during the Wireless Enterprise Symposium at Orlando in Florida this year.

This manager (software) will "centrally monitor and manage the extended BlackBerry solution ecosystem.'' The ecosystem comprises the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software, mail servers, databases, Microsoft Active Directory and server operating systems such as Windows Server.

In a statement Monday, the Waterloo-based Canadian wireless giant said the solutions, including support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, will raise service levels, cut operations costs and improve productivity for customers.

The statement said RIM and HP will "design and launch offerings to increase the productivity levels of the growing number of mobile employees, enabling businesses to extend the return on their investments in mobility.''

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said, "RIM and HP are working together to deliver solutions to customers that weave mobility into their daily operations - from innovative new services in the cloud to managed mobile services for the enterprise.

"Through our collaboration with HP, businesses will have access to an expanded set of applications and services for their BlackBerry smartphone deployments.''

HP executive vice president said, "As businesses look for new ways to increase service levels, reduce operational costs and improve productivity, they can meet these challenges by transforming how they manage the infrastructure that powers their mobile workforces.

"Emerging models of communications and collaboration have created an opportunity for RIM and HP to provide service-based mobile solutions that deliver value to customers."

BlackBerry shares jumped up $1.68 to $87.48 on the Toronto Stock Exchange after the announcement of the tie-up.

BlackBerry bosses fined $77 million for option backdating

BlackBerry co-CEOs and top executives were collectively fined $77 million Thursday for their role in a stock option backdating controversy at the wireless communication giant.

The provincial Ontario Securities Commission, which has been investigating the two co-CEOs - Jim Balsillie and Michael Lazaridis - and other executives for their role in the controversy dating from 1996 to 2006, handed down the biggest fine in its history for financial irregularities.

It said the top bosses at BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) were not involved in the fraud but negligent in letting option backdating take place.

Under the deal with the market watchdog, the two co-CEOs and a former chief financial officer will pay the bulk of $77 million in fines and legal costs for settlement of the controversy.

Stock options backdating set the grant date of RIM shares retrospectively when the stock was low, thus giving instant paper gain for top employees.

The RIM board set up a special committee to investigate the backdating issue in 2007 and reportedly found that the company had backdated more than 40 per cent of stock options granted to employees since 1996.

The investigation also found that 12 of the 16 option grants made to the two co-CEOs between 1996 and 2006, to acquire a total of two million shares, were priced using an incorrect date.

The stock option backdating reportedly benefited the two co-CEOs to the tune of US $1.6 million each.

As per the settlement, Lazaridis, who founded RIM in 1984, will also pay $1.5 million in penalty and $150,000 in legal costs to the market watchdog.

Co-CEO Balsillie will also pay $5 million as administrative penalty to the securities commission.

Under the settlement, the two c-CEOS and senior executive Dennis Kavelman will repay $38.3 million to the BlackBerry maker company. This amount includes $5.3 million in interest to RIM.

They will also have to pay $44.8 million to cover RIM's investigative costs.

``We are very pleased to put this behind us, for the employees and for the shareholders, and really get back to work 100 per cent,'' Balsillie said after the settlement.

He added, ``It's highly inappropriate for me to talk about specifics of the settlement and so I just won't. But I really want to re-emphasize that we take this very seriously.''

The launch of BlackBerry smart phones - which serve as mobile phones as well as send secure email messages - in 1999 has made RIM a major global brand. More than 50 million BlackBerry devices have been sold so far, making the two co-CEOs billionaires in the process.

While Balsillie holds shares worth $2.4 billion in the company, Lazaridis' stake is valued at $2.5 billion.

BlackBerry unveils 'Bold' version, to hit market soon

To broaden its 14-million customer base, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, based at Waterloo near here, Monday unveiled a new and sleeker version of the wireless device that is a style statement among professionals and corporates around the world.

Called the BlackBerry Bold, the new smartphone comes with a variety of new features. Labelled as model number 9000, it will be priced between $300 and $400 and hit the market this summer.

This will be the first BlackBerry to support tri-band HSDPA high-speed cellular networks around the world and feature integrated GPS, Wi-Fi and a set of multimedia capabilities, the company said in a statement Monday.
``The new BlackBerry Bold represents a tremendous step forward in business-grade smartphones and lives up to its name with incredible speed, power and functionality, all wrapped in a beautiful and confident design,'' company president and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said.

Apart from the usual BlackBerry applications, including phone, email, messaging, and organizer and browser, the BlackBerry Bold will also feature 624 MHz mobile processor for quick downloading of email attachments, streaming video or rendering web pages, 128 MB Flash memory and one GB on-board storage memory.

``With this powerful new smartphone, users can even talk on the phone while sending and receiving email or accessing the web, and download Word, Excel or PowerPoint files and edit them directly on the handset using the preloaded DataViz Documents to Go suite,'' the company statement said.

Thanks to its high-resolution, ultra-bright display and its colour LCD fused to the undersurface of the lens, users will get vibrant and razor-sharp pictures, while videos play smoothly and web pages, documents, presentations and messages snap with exceptional quality and contrast, the company claimed.

The BlackBerry Bold will make on-the-go browsing a whole new experience, with the trackball mimicking a mouse, and making it easier to navigate sites or to zoom in on specific parts of a web page.

Users can also choose between the full desktop-style HTML content and layout or the mobile version. It also features a two-megapixel camera for video recording, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom.

The device will also allow users connectivity to protected wireless networks. With its enhanced media player, users can display pictures and slideshows quickly, play movies in full screen mode, and manage their music collection.

The BlackBerry has a customer base of about 14 million, mostly corporate executives and professionals who use it for sending secure wireless emails.

However, the Canadian giant in wireless connectivity, which operates in North America, Europe and Asia, says about a third of its subscribers are non-corporate types, including ordinary consumers. To woo this market, the company is launching new devices soon.