Nokia and RIM诺基亚.ppt

Never mind returning to their glory days, Research In Motion and Nokia look like terminal cases. Can they manage to survive ? Nokia can, probably. RIMs road looks much rockier. Nokias play is to replace its own smartphone operating system with Microsofts; RIM is rebuilding its own operating system from the ground up. Nokia at least has its new smartphones on store shelves at least, yet it is struggling to gain sales momentum. A 50% price cut that Nokia calls normal quickly followed in the U.S. Nokia expects the current quarter to be challenging while it waits to release new devices, perhaps in time for Christmas and just in time to compete with next iPhone. For its part, RIM has pushed back the expected release date for BlackBerries based on its new operating system, BB10 again. Now they cant be expected until the first quarter of next year. When they finally achieve, RIM will be making a play to be the fourth mobile ecosystem. Microsoft (together with Nokia) is just struggling to be the third. Both companies seem to have a decent cash cushion, but perhaps not for a long. Nokia had 4.2 billion ($5.16 billion) of net cash at the end of the last quarter, but it sees 1.2 billion of restructuring expenses over the next two years. RIM has $2.2 billion of net cash and $350 million of restructuring costs. More important is whether each will see operations become a bigger cash drain. Thats tough to forecast, not knowing how quickly their franchises will continue to deteriorate. But one source of cash for both should go away, working capital benefits. When companies shrink, they draw down inventories and collect on receivables while making smaller payments to suppliers. This can add cash to the balance sheet, but its a gift that eventually stops giving. In the most recent quarter, Nokia generated 500 million of cash , and RIM generated $400 million. Each company has patents, though it can be difficult to determine their value. Nokias bring i