Just a hunch, mind you. But one based on the fact that as I am sure other BlackBerry news sources and forums will confirm, Research In Motion did not seem to have the issues with the emergency pre-release BlackBerry Pearl pix and deets as they have shown with earlier models.
Why? Maybe RIM is realizing the power of the blogosphere to fan, fan excitement. But there may be more tangible reasons. It has to do with how much richer at least on paper RIM's shareholders- especially co-CEOs Jim Balsilie and Mike Lazaridis have become since the news about the Pearl 8100 first hit the grapevine.
While I don't think for a second that Jim and Mike are into this for the short haul, it is hard to imagine that any executive would object to a chain of events that dramaticlaly lifts the overall market value of the company- and their stake in it as well.
How much richer? You won't believe it, but 'tis true.According to Research In Motion's most recent 13-G filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the BlackBerry-maker's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis owns 12,904,650 shares of his company's common stock.
And the same documentation shows that co-CEO Jim Balsillie owns 12,242,854 shares of RIM's common stock.
Noting that news of the imminent T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl (8100) release has sent RIM stock soaring to a nearly five-month high, I was curious how much the value of Mike and Jim's holdings of RIM common shares have grown since the news of the Pearl leaked out.
On August 7, which was the first full day of stock trading after news of the BlackBerry 8100 leaked out, RIM stock closed at $66.99 a share on the Nasdaq.
Yesterday, August 29- with BlackBerry 8100 Pearl devices hitting T-Mobile stores for release on September 12, RIM stock closed the trading day at $82.74 a share. That's a $15.75 a share differential.
OK, Excel, do your job:
In that time period, the value of Mike Lazaridis' common stock holdings in RIM have increased $203,248,238.
And we won't have to hold any benefits for Jim either.
He's $192,824,950 more in the money.
So the bottom line is that Jim and Mike are both around $200 million richer since the BlackBerry Pearl started to hit the BlackBerry blog URLs.
Now, do you get it?
1. This just goes to show you the power of blogs and how much they can affect buzz. RIM has yet to officially announce that the BlackBerry Pearl even exists, however, it is arguably one of the most talked about new and anticipated devices out right now.
Posted at 9:33AM on Aug 30th 2006 by Robb Dunewood (RIMarkable)