Research In Motion’s stock has traditionally been pretty strong, but Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum has lowered the target price to $47, and downgraded the stock to “sell”. As Henry Blodget says, “when analysts cut stocks to SELL, they burn relationships with not only the company but clients who own the company’s stock. So when they finally give up and throw in the towel, you know things really have gone to hell.” Whyfore the downgrade, then? Of course the BlackBerry Torch 9800 hasn’t been selling so hot, but there are a few other reasons.
Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about the BlackBerry bans, since they’re getting handled pretty nicely, and BYOP (bring your own phone) in enterprise is still the exception rather than the rule. However, the threat of Android capturing a consumer market that BlackBerry was just starting to get cozy with is very real. The biggest challenge to RIM right now is to get developers interested in writing BlackBerry apps, since the current selection can’t hold a candle to iPhone or Android alternatives. By comparison, the BlackBerry development environment is just not a fun place to be for programmers. If I owned RIM stock, I’d wait for the BlackBerry Developer Conference next month to see if new tools are introduced which could produce a richer App World, then decide if I wanted to cash out.
[via Barrons]