Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) are up 68 cents, or almost 9%, at $8.60, and rose as high as $8.85, after the company last night said its “BlackBerry 10” software for it smartphone products had crossed a threshold, entering testing with cell phone operators, and the company’s CEO, Thorsten Heins, said he had been making visits with telcos in recent weeks to show off the new technology.
Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek, who has an Underperform rating on the shares, and a $5 price target, is about the only one on the Street to comment on the matter so far, and he’s unimpressed.
The kind of “lab trial” that RIM referred to last night typically takes three to six months, writes Misek, so it looks like the company is on track to a March debut, which is what he’s been expecting.
However, that means there will be little for RIM to sell in the February-ending quarter, as inventory is held at a minimum, Misek thinks, and he argues that any licensing of the software will only happen sometime after BB10 is realized:
Management has been silent as to the timing of the launch within CQ1 but we believe plans for a Jan launch have now been pushed back until March, which means BB10 will miss RIM’s Feb Q. We also see the channel inventory drawdown ahead of BB10 as weighing on the Nov Q as well […] We believe there is no imminent sale of RIMM and any licensing deals are likely well after the launch of BB10 in January. We think Samsung and some other Asian OEMs might be interested, but we think they see better terms and entry points months from now.
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Source: Tech Trader Daily