Patent law and case law do not intersect until the very end. |
Perversely, the lawsuit highlighted how much better and technologically advanced RIM products are. After that, who knows. |
The closest person in scale is probably Microsoft, but by their own admission their technology is behind. And if I had to guess I'd say it's 18 to 24 months behind. |
The decision does not come as a surprise and was largely incorporated in the stock already in our opinion. |
The earnings were a huge positive surprise, and I think it was an okay quarter. I would like to have seen stronger service bookings and more strength on software, but the core brands within software did well. And gross margins were pretty damn good. |
The news is starting to circulate that the pick-up in demand since the settlement has been very large. |
This is an extremely positive development for RIM. The settlement basically makes the pre-warning irrelevant. There's a lot of pent-up demand for RIM products, and competitors have not been able to capitalize on this. |
This would be a very good strategic fit -- largely because each is a little shaky alone. |
We believe the impact of an injunction to RIM would be severe. We would guess that the stock could fall $20 to $50 per share. |
We continue to believe that Microsoft is a fiscal-year 2007 story and hence are maintaining our 'Buy' recommendation and our $32 target price. |