RIM
(July 2012) Weekly Business News Summary -- week ending June 30, 2012: European leaders attending a two-day summit agreed early Friday on a plan to use bailout funds to directly aid banks in Spain and Italy, give the European Central Bank responsibility for regulation of the Eurozone's main banks and a promise that the 'Eurogroup will examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with the view of further improving the sustainability of the well-performing adjustment programme.' The news triggered a global share rally as fears had mounted in recent weeks that the Eurozone crisis would worsen...Barclays Bank admitted to the fraudulent manipulation of LIBOR, the benchmark London lending rate between banks, and it was fined $360m by American authorities and £59.5m UK regulators. As a result Bob Diamond, Barclays’ boss, and other executives decided to forgo their 2012 bonuses. However, Diamond is under pressure to resign...The Financial Times reported that total equity capital market activity in the second quarter was $121bn, according to data from Thomson Reuters. This was down more than 20% on the first quarter and made for a first half total of $276bn, which was 37% weaker than the same period in 2011...Research in Motion: The shares of the Canadian maker of the Blackberry smartphone, fell 19% to $7.39 on Friday, pushing down company's market capitalization to $3.81 bn, less than 1/20th of its peak value in 2008.
(May 2012) Daily News Digest - - Thurs May 31, 2012: Key Irish and international business news at a glance; Research In Motion (RIM), maker of Blackberry mobile phones, warned it will make a loss in its latest quarter and make "significant" job cuts. RIM also said it was hiring JPMorgan and RBC Capital Markets to help with a "strategic review" of the business...European Commission challenged Germany’s remedies for the financial crisis, calling for direct euro-area aid for troubled banks and demanding a path to common bond issuance...The Euro 2012 football championship in Ukraine and Poland will highlight Europe's cramped mentality because football reflects the spirit of the times, writes philosopher Hans Schnitzler in his column in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant.
(April 2012) Ireland's public science budget has cost over €20bn in the past decade but there's little to show for it. Canada also has been providing R&D tax credits and allocating a lot of resources to research but Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is struggling to survive and there are few other stars. It's argued that R&D is very rarely the critical factor and roughly 95% of innovation occurs after initial breakthrough inventions in the lab - - out in the marketplace, where new ideas are “grafted” on to existing products and processes. The main contribution of universities to innovation isn’t basic research, but brain power - - a pool of smart graduate students who take their cutting-edge knowledge to employers.
(December 2011) It was another bleak week for the maker of the once must-have BlackBerry smartphone, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM). On Friday, the company cut its 2012 outlook. The week had begun when 2 drunken RIM executives behaved as hooligans on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing triggering an unscheduled landing in Vancouver. The drunkards were given swift justice on Wednesday and the embattled company issued a laconic statement: “Based on the limited information available at this time, RIM has suspended the individuals involved pending further investigation.” RIM's share price is down 70% this year.
