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BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion temporarily halted stock trading 15 minutes after the market closed today, and issued a “business update” where it admitted it will “likely have an operating loss” for its fiscal first quarter.

“RIM is going through a significant transformation as we move towards the BlackBerry 10 launch, and our financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters,” relatively new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said in the update. “The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter.”

On top of halting trading and providing an update, the company said it has hired the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to give the company a “strategic review.”

“To further enhance our commitment to successfully completing our transformation, after the release of our year-end financial results, we engaged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to assist the Company and our Board of Directors in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance,” Heins said. “These advisers have been tasked to help us with the strategic review we referenced on our year-end financial results conference call and to evaluate the relative merits and feasibility of various financial strategies, including opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.”

RIM will reveal its almost certainly bad results for Q1 of its fiscal 2013 on June 28. The company said it will issue a more detailed update on the state of the company when it reports the Q1 results in June.

Filed under: deals, mobile

Canadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has briefly ceased trading of their stock today in order to issue a “business update” from CEO Thorsten Heins to their stockholders.

Though the release takes the time to outline some of the company’s recent personnel changes, Heins also points out that the company has enlisted the services of both the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to help the company evaluate their financial strategies going forward.

To quote Mr. Heins:

To further enhance our commitment to successfully completing our transformation, after the release of our year-end financial results, we engaged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to assist the Company and our Board of Directors in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance. These advisors have been tasked to help us with the strategic review we referenced on our year-end financial results conference call and to evaluate the relative merits and feasibility of various financial strategies, including opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.

For those still unfamiliar with Mr. Heins’s M.O., he’s made it very clear in the past that he will consider all potential options to ensure that the ailing smartphone company has a future. That includes the possibility of licensing their still-incomplete BlackBerry 10 operating system to other hardware manufacturers down the line, as well as the extreme possibility of selling the company entirely. Whether or not either of the financial advisors the company has been consorting with will prod him in either of those directions is still unclear, but at this point it seems like Heins needs a bit of help plotting the company’s course.

There are a few other juicy tidbits to be found as well — Heins notes that the transition period RIM is currently attempting to wade through has been a tricky one, and that the company (perhaps unsurprisingly) will likely report an operating loss in their forthcoming Q1 earnings report. On the upside, the BlackBerry World conference seems to have done a decent enough job driving developers to BlackBerry 10 — the free hardware probably didn’t hurt — and the company now reports that there are 80,000 BlackBerry apps floating around in their App World.

While we shouldn’t get too hung up on numbers, the Windows Phone Marketplace hit that milestone last month, and that platform has only been around for roughly two years. In short, RIM still has a long to go to prove that their platform is still one to keep our eyes on.

RIM thought the news big enough to temporarily ceased all trading activity, a move they’re rather familiar with. They pulled something similar back in March just ahead of the release of their disappointing fourth quarter financials and the announcement that co-CEO Jim Balsillie was stepping away from the board of directors.

The full release has been reproduced below:

Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM), a world leader in the mobile communications market, today provided a business update from Thorsten Heins, the Company’s President and CEO.

“During the Q4 2012 and fiscal year-end financial results conference call on March 29, I said that I would provide our shareholders with candid and timely updates when possible on the progress and challenges RIM is experiencing. While we are no longer giving quantitative financial guidance, I wanted to provide a brief business update at this time, and will provide more details when our Q1 financial results for the quarter ended June 2, 2012 are released on June 28.

In terms of challenges, as I mentioned on the March financial results conference call, RIM is going through a significant transformation as we move towards the BlackBerry 10 launch, and our financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters. The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter. We are continuing to be aggressive as we compete for our customers’ business – both enterprise and consumer – around the world, and our teams are working hard to provide cost-competitive, feature-rich solutions to our global customer base. On the positive side, we expect to further increase our cash position in Q1 from the approximately $2.1 billion we had at the end of fiscal 2012.

Despite the current challenges, we have made significant progress on a number of fronts in the past few months:

Our annual BlackBerry World conference and BlackBerry 10 Jam took place earlier this month and both were tremendously successful. More than 5,000 developers, partners, carriers and enterprise customers from 115 different countries saw the first glimpses of our next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform and their response was encouraging.

Our developer partners have been enthusiastic with the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha prototype unit we distributed at BlackBerry World and many are well underway in developing applications to be ready for the launch of BlackBerry 10 in the latter part of calendar 2012.

The support and enthusiasm from our developer community is also reflected in our app growth, where we now feature more than 80,000 apps, which represents a 220% increase from one year ago, and more than 15,000 apps for PlayBook compared to less than 2,000 last year. We believe this bodes well for our ecosystem as we get set to launch BlackBerry 10.

We are making steady progress with the innovation of our next-generation BlackBerry 10 mobile computing platform, which is still on track to launch in the latter part of calendar 2012.

Our global subscriber base continued to grow this quarter to approximately 78 million, driven primarily by growth in international markets, which is partially offset by high churn in the United States, and our BBM user base has grown to approximately 59 million users globally.

Our strong brand internationally was recently enhanced with the successful launch of two new BlackBerry 7 phones in India and Latin America.

We continue to make strategic changes to RIM’s senior management team with the hiring of two key new members to RIM’s executive leadership team. Kristian Tear, our Chief Operating Officer, whose background also includes extensive experience in international sales in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and Frank Boulben, our Chief Marketing Officer, who will provide our team with deep experience in the mobile computing and communications industry. Both will assist me and the existing executive team as we continue to make the organizational changes necessary to position RIM for the future and prepare for the launch of our new BlackBerry 10 platform.

The CORE (cost optimization and resource efficiency) program we told you about previously is focused on delivering key operational savings through various initiatives. The financial objectives for the CORE program are targeted to drive $1 billion in savings by the end of fiscal 2013, based on our Q4 run rate. We are targeting better efficiency and use of resources in our sales and marketing initiatives to effectively leverage marketing windows and evaluate our country portfolio to determine where it makes sense for us to prioritize our efforts. We will also continue to review RIM’s organizational structure and clearly define accountabilities for all key businesses and business processes with a goal of eliminating fragmentation, duplication and inefficiencies. While there will be significant spending reductions and headcount reductions in some areas throughout the remainder of the fiscal year, we will continue to spend and hire in key areas such as those associated with the launch of BlackBerry 10, and those tied to the growth of our application developer community. We will share more details regarding our progress throughout the year as programs are implemented or changes are completed.

To further enhance our commitment to successfully completing our transformation, after the release of our year-end financial results, we engaged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to assist the Company and our Board of Directors in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance. These advisors have been tasked to help us with the strategic review we referenced on our year-end financial results conference call and to evaluate the relative merits and feasibility of various financial strategies, including opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.

Although we are facing challenges, we remain excited about BlackBerry 10 and believe that this platform coupled with the results of the strategic review will create long-term value for our stakeholders. We will provide another more detailed business update when we report our first quarter results in June.”

Developing…

RBC Capital Markets expressed belief on Tuesday that Apple will revamp its MacBook portables later this quarter and release a new iPhone in September or October.

Facebook released the amount of shares allocated to each of its underwriters today, following its less than stellar IPO day.

The company went public on the Nasdaq today, to an EKG-like performance, ending in a .38 cent gain today. The update came in an amendment to the company’s prospectus following the close of the market. Along with its own tumultuous time trading, a number of other tech companies’ share prices fell today, including Zynga’s which had to be halted.

The total amount of shares allocated to underwriters amounted to 421,233,615, with Morgan Stanley leading the group with 162,174,942 shares now worth over six billion dollars. Morgan Stanley was followed by J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Barclays.

Filed under: VentureBeat

Shutterstock, a stock photography service, filed paperwork today with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering worth $115 million.

Shutterstock provides organizations with royalty-free stock images and photography that can be used for advertisements, artwork, promotions, and general editorial purposes. The company, which has 550,000 paying customers, currently has more than 19 million images available in a variety of sizes and file types, such as the larger .tiff and vector images that print publications need. [Disclosure: Shutterstock provides VentureBeat with a limited number of images for free.]

Shutterstock’s total revenue has grown from $61.1 million in 2009 to $83.0 million in 2010 and $120.3 million in 2011 — representing a compound annual growth rate of 40.3 percent since 2009, according to the S-1 filing.

The company will use money from the IPO for operational purposes, as well as possibly acquiring other companies that are strategic to its current business. Shutterstock’s stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol of SSTK.

The exact number of shares and price per share for the IPO have yet to be determined. For the transaction, the company has hired Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities, and Jefferies, with  RBC Capital Markets, Stifel Nicolaus Weisel, and William Blair acting as co-managers.

Image via Oleksiy Mark / Shutterstock

Filed under: deals, media

It’s a fact of life for many a new smartphone on the market: the impressive sales seen at launch and during the first few weeks will inevitably taper off. RIM’s new line of BlackBerrys may have already blown through that initial grace period, if RBC Capital Market’s Mike Abramsky is to be believed. Abramsky noted to investors this morning that BlackBerry sales have begun to slow down as RIM heads into the holiday season.

“Despite on-time BlackBerry 7 launches, checks are showing slowing domestic sell-through, plus impacts from recent service outages and PlayBook challenges (delayed software, sluggish sell-through),” Abramsky said.

The news can’t be too welcome to the folks at Waterloo, seeing as RBC Capital Markets had previously maintained a bullish stance on the company’s future. For what it’s worth, RIM can take solace in the fact that they enjoy a strong position in international markets — Abramsky refers to them as the top vendor in Great Britain and Indonesia.

Still, at home and in the U.S., RIM is looking at a dire set of circumstances. Their new BlackBerry 7-powered devices must compete with top-tier smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and HTC (among others) this holiday season, and they’re already feeling the squeeze. Abramsky isn’t the first to notice the dip in BlackBerry sales — Canaccord Genuity’s T. Michael Walkley reported on a similar situation last week in a note to investors, and notes that the new iPhone has helped in removing the wind from RIM’s sails.

“While our September/October checks indicated solid sales of new BlackBerry operating system 7 models, especially the Bold 9000 series as an upgrade enterprise sale, our recent checks indicate slowing sales trends post the launch of the iPhone 4S and price reductions of the iPhone 4 and 3GS,” said Walkley.

Meanwhile, RIM’s BBX-powered lifeboat isn’t expected to see the light of day until the middle of next year, which amounts to ages in the mobile space. A brief look at what could be the company’s first BBX BlackBerry revealed a list of specs that would have trouble wowing customers even now, let alone next year. In spite of everything though, RIM’s upper brass continues to put on a brave face. While on a conference call in September, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that he felt the company was well-positioned going into the holidays, but we’ll soon see if his confidence was warranted.

New estimates from Wall Street analysts suggest Apple registered more than 3 million pre-orders for its newest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, after selling the device for one weekend.

Apple announced this morning it registered pre-orders for more than 1 million iPhone 4S phones in 24 hours, well beyond its previous record of 600,000 phones. New estimates peg the initial weekend’s sales to be somewhere north of 3 million, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky. That means Apple could sell more than 25 million iPhones in its fourth operating quarter this year, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said.

The last time Apple launched an iPhone, it was only available on AT&T. Apple opened the iPhone 4 up to Verizon Wireless in January this year. This time around, Apple is launching the phone on the three largest wireless carriers in the United States simultaneously. The iPhone 4 sold out in around 17 hours when it launched on Verizon Wireless in January. It also sold out in less than 24 hours on AT&Twhen it launched in June last year.

The iPhone 4S sports significant hardware upgrades, though it looks identical to the iPhone 4. The phone runs Apple’s A5 dual-core processor and has more memory. It also has an 8-megapixel camera, compared to the iPhone 5′s 5-megapixel camera. Apple normally releases a new phone every year, but the company atypically released the iPhone 4S later this year, just after its most recent operating quarter ended September 25.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S began Friday last week. The company will start shipping the phone this Friday Oct. 14. It’s available with a new 2-year contract for $199, $299 and $399 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models of the phone respectively. The phone is available on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.  The iPhone 4S will make its worldwide debut October 14 in United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K.

Filed under: mobile

Online video platform company Brightcove this morning announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the SEC in connection with a proposed IPO of its common stock.

The company is looking to raise up to $50 million through the offering.

Brightcove offers cloud-based solutions for publishing and distributing digital media, primarily video.

Brightcove’s revenue grew from $24.5 million in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008, to $43.7 million in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010, the filing reveals. Revenue was $28.4 million for the six months ended June 30, 2011.

The company’s isn’t profitable – they report a net loss of $9.7 million for the first half of this year. Brightcove says it doesn’t expect to be in the black until the end of 2012.

The company says in the filing that it had close to 3,300 customers in over 50 countries as of June 30, 2011, including The New York Times Company, Oracle, Philips Electronics, Macy’s, Bank of America, the U.S. Army and Honda. It currently has close to 300 employees.

In May 2011, Brightcove announced the release of ‘App Cloud’, a software application development and management platform designed to help customers publish and distribute video through software apps across multiple Internet-connected devices. The company says it expect its first commercial sale in the second half of 2011.

Brightcove filed to list on the NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker “BCOV.”

The offering is being made through Morgan Stanley, Stifel Nicolaus, RBC Capital Markets, Pacific Crest Securities, and Raymond James.