So Long, And Thanks For All The Quantum Research

I'd like to be an optimist, like Matt Burns. I really would. Like Research In Motion itself, I was born and raised in Waterloo, Ontario. Like its former co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, I studied electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo. I've seen RIM transform my home town over the years, giving it new parks, new buildings, huge bequests for the university, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. I'd love to see it survive its current dire straits and somehow thrive. But I just can't see it happening. I guess it's still just barely possible to maintain optimism. This was the first quarter since their rise that they've reported a loss; they can still spin that into a Rocky-esque down-but-not-out narrative, as long as they rearrange a few deck chairs. But as Paul Graham recently pointed out, "revenue is a lagging indicator in the technology business." Revenue down 25% year-over-year, for a tech company of RIM's size, in one of the hottest markets in the world? That's not a setback, that's a catastrophe.

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