The Waterloo, Ont.-based company faces a Feb. 24 court hearing in Richmond, Va., at which a federal district court judge will weigh NTP’s arguments for an injunction on the BlackBerry service in the United States against opposition from RIM and its allies.
“We’re in a situation now where you have to play it out and fortunately we have very strong contingency plans,” RIM chief financial officer Dannis Kavelman said Friday at a CIBC World Markets conference.
“The critical thing for us is, really, can we keep our customers confident in knowing that the (BlackBerry) service isn’t going to shut down (and) keep momentum going.”
Research In Motion, which has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years on the strength of its BlackBerry handsets and its wireless e-mail service, is confident it can not only keep operating in the United States but also find important new growth opportunities there and abroad, Kavelman said.
“If you look forward, I don’t think anybody’s expecting the scale of our business or the opportunities to slow down that much,” he said.
“I mean, you always go through great quarters and slower quarters and new product launch times and overhang from other events that are beyond your control but I think the trend is there.”
RIM doesn’t think its core market in North America, corporate IT departments, is “anywhere near saturated” and the company doesn’t think it has “even touched” the business retail market and “we certainly haven’t gone near the broad consumer market.”
“So there are a lot of different places to go in our home market,” Kavelman said.
He noted that RIM has developed a “workaround” that the company says would provide a technical solution to its litigation problem. He also said RIM is still open to a settlement with NTP and added more court appeals are possible.
“Whatever happens at the district court level can also be taken to other appeal levels,” Kavelman said.
