More Videos
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- My Top 10 Tech Toys for the Holidays
- iPhone a Better Gaming Platform Than Android?
- Dell Has Some Explaining to Do
- Dell May Start to Show Some Promise
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Intel's Andy Bryant Offers An Explanation
- Apple's Global Retail Invasion
- Intel Settles; AMD Settles the Score
- HP's Shot Across Cisco's Bow
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Existing-Home Sales Jump To Highest Level in 2-1/2 Years
- Paul: Audit the Fed
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- TV Retailer QVC Joins 'Black Friday' Frenzy
- Start-Up Proves Everything Really Is Better With Bacon
- Buffett's Wealth and Fame Hasn't Helped 'Warren' As a Name
- Madoff—The Holiday Drink
- S&P Stocks Trading at New 52-Week Highs
- Nov. 23: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Gold Prices Can Double in 3 Years: Portfolio Manager
- Nov. 23: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Help Wanted—Please Run $4 Billion University
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- Rally Could 'Have Some Legs in 2010': Market Strategist
- Investors May Skew Housing Reality
- Buffett's Wealth and Fame Hasn't Helped 'Warren' As a Name
- Are Crazy Retail Deals Good for Business?
- Expect a 'Square Root-Shaped' Recovery: Chief Investor
- Why the Dollar Will Likely Stay Weak for Some Time
- Wall Street 'Bonuses' Disappear—but Only in Name
- Bear, Lehman Execs Weren't Wiped Out by Crisis: Study
- How Real Estate Investors Skew Housing's Reality
- Vioxx Showed Risk Signs Before Being Pulled: Report
- Even Buffett's Huge Fame Can't Help the Name 'Warren'
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- JPMorgan's Dimon Could Succeed Geithner: Report
- Suze Orman’s 'A Healthier, Wealthier You'
TECH CHECK VIDEO
RSS FEED
Tech Check
Text Size 
In my earlier post about Research in Motion's bitter earnings miss, I speculated that before investors rush off to sell their Apple shares in sympathy -- worried that iPhone sales might also be slow too -- they may want to study RIM's reasons for its shortfall.
And that appears to be good advice.
On RIM's conference call, it admitted that an enormous marketing push to fend off the coming iPhone onslaught was a key factor in the earnings miss.
More specifically, RIM spent nearly $380 million on marketing and advertising its BlackBerry. It's an enormous figure no one was counting on. We had an inkling that costs might be on the rise, but certainly not something like this.
So, as RIM's shares [RIMM
Loading...
()
] fall, and Apple's [AAPL
Loading...
()
] begin to recover from their sympathy slide, take the news in stride: RIM appears not to be scared to spend money to make money. But it didn't work all that well, since device sales still fell short of expectations.
Bottomline: RIM is taking steps to ward off Apple. That's the good news. The bad news for RIM, and the good news for Apple: That RIM has to spend this kind of money to try to get that job done. And it still didn't work. Which means it'll have to spend more next quarter.
Ouch.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes