iPhone 5 to 'Steamroll' RIM's BlackBerry 7 Lineup, Says Analyst

Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities has issued a new research note to investors saying he believes Apple’s iPhone 5 will "steamroll" RIM's BlackBerry 7 phones.

Research In Motion (RIM) is struggling to push its Blackberry 7 phones as Apple gears up for yet another iconic refresh of its own smartphone business.

This time around, Research in Motion will again be caught off guard, as the iPhone 5 will simply "steamroll" their BlackBerry 7 lineup, White said.

Apple’s iPhone business has had the advantage of gaining momentum, something that has been perpetuated every year since 2007, when the original Apple smartphone saw the light of day.

That momentum is going "off the charts" in October, White said, when Apple's iPhone 5 is expected to drop.

On the tablet front, RIM's PlayBook is likely taking the same route as HP's TouchPad, White said. The analyst even foresees discontinuation and specifically noted that RIM’s PlayBook is slated to be the "next casualty of iPad's tablet dominance."

In what gives true meaning to the expression ‘great minds think alike’, Analyst Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan said the exact same thing today when talking to his clients about Apple’s iPad business.

In his own research note to investors, Moskowitz said Apple doesn’t even have to launch an iPad 3, pointing to all the junk tablets that are supposed to compete with it. He said Apple will introduce its third tablet sometime in 2012 at the latest.

Back to White’s research, he said that RIM keeps giving investors bad guidance and that he doesn’t have too much faith in their latest forecast for the next quarter.

"Having repeatedly provided an overly optimistic outlook and the iPhone 5 poised to launch soon, we believe RIMM will again come up short," he said.

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