What Are Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY)’s Strategic Options?

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Invest in the future
Despite Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)’s current state of bleeding subscribers, its conservative balance sheet tactics has allowed it to amass a $3.1 billion security blanket of cash. Since the company only lost $84 million in net income last quarter, it could arguably allocate more of its nest egg toward research and development than the $358 million or 12% of revenue it allocated last quarter. For comparison, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) spent over $1.1 billion and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) spent over $1.8 billion in R&D last quarter. Perhaps if BlackBerry wants a seat at the big kids’ table, it ought to invest more in line with its biggest competitors.

Plenty of time
With plenty of cash on hand, Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has bought itself the most valuable commodity of them all: time. For the time being, BlackBerry can either stay the current course, which is to release more BlackBerry 10 devices and enterprise services, or it can leisurely evaluate some of its strategic options in hopes to create long-term shareholder value. If BlackBerry 10’s fate doesn’t pan out as management expects, and the company doesn’t explore its options, it’s not going to be a pretty sight for shareholders.

The article What Are BlackBerry’s Strategic Options? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Steve Heller.

Fool contributor Steve Heller owns shares of Apple and Google. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

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