I haven't seen this posted in BBF, so I will.
Does anyone here recall what a failing company Apple had become in the late 80s and early 90s... roughly about ten years after it's founding (about the same age as RIM is now).
If you don't,
(and some few posters here are too young and/or too ignorant to recall) please allow me to refresh your memory:
History of Apple Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quote:
In the late 1980s, Apple's fiercest technological rivals were the Amiga and Atari ST platforms. But by the 1990s, computers based on the IBM PC had become more popular than all three; they finally had a comparable GUI thanks to Windows 3.0, and were out-competing Apple.
Apple's response to the PC threat was a profusion of new Macintosh lines including Quadra, Centris, and Performa. Unfortunately, these new lines were marketed poorly by what was now "arguably one of the worst-managed companies in the industry". For one, there were too many models, differentiated by very minor graduations in their tech specs.
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Does that sound familiar?
Review the company's
financial performance:
Over a two-year period in 1996-97,
Apple lost almost two billion dollars in net profits, and for three years its
revenue growth was at -11%, -28% and -16%, bouncing back in 2000 with a 30% increase, only to drop it again in
2001 with -33% in revenue growth.
AAPL stock in March 2000 was selling at $31.50, by November of the same year,
it had fallen to $8.25. AND,
it took over four years for AAPL to reach that $31.50 price again.
Remember, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple over years ago, and he sold ALL of his stock.
So, anyway, things aren't quite what they seem... always. Otherwise, Apple would never have been able to re-design its future and become the company it is known as today.
The question is, can RIM do it?