Worth a Re-Link: Michael Mace on What’s Really Wrong With RIM

Michael Mace, back in October:

I looked at everything from videogame companies to the early PC pioneers (companies like Commodore and Atari), and I found an interesting pattern in their financial results. The early symptoms of decline in a computing platform were very subtle, and easy for a business executive to rationalize away. By the time the symptoms became obvious, it was usually too late to do anything about them.

The symptoms to watch closely are small declines in two metrics: the rate of growth of sales, and gross profit per unit sold (gross margins). Here’s why.

I thought this was a compelling and cogent case against RIM when I linked to it in December. Now, almost five months later, it’s looking more and more like Mace was correct.

★ Monday, 2 May 2011