Analyst: Even with BlackBerry 10, RIM's 'glory days are past'

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) will formally unveil is BlackBerry 10 platform Wednesday, and the company's stock price has more than doubled since late October in advance of the launch. However, Ovum analyst Jan Dawson is throwing cold water on RIM's comeback before it even gets off the ground, arguing that RIM cannot stop the fact that individuals are buying smartphones more than companies now and that the new BB10 platform is not aimed at converting smartphone users from other leading platforms. Dawson writes that BB10's introduction will lead to existing BlackBerry subscribers upgrading but that RIM's "glory days are past" and that its decline will continue. "In all, RIM continues to face the twin demons of consumer-driven buying power and a chronic inability to appeal to mature market consumers," he writes. "There is nothing in what we've seen so far of BB10 that suggests it will conquer the second of these demons, and the first is utterly out of RIM's control." Meanwhile, Lenovo said that recent comments from its CFO about a potential acquisition of RIM were taken out of context. Release