The last vestiges of the older Research In Motion company are no more. Shareholders today voted in favour of renaming Research In Motion Ltd. to BlackBerry Ltd. The move had been expected since January when it unveiled its new BlackBerry 10 operating system and new devices.
Despite the company calling itself BlackBerry in marketing materials and trading under the ticker symbol ‘BBRY’ since January, the legal name change required shareholder approval with a two thirds majority. Today’s annual meeting was its first opportunity to put the matter up for the necessary vote.
With that vote out of the way, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins will likely face tough questions from shareholders after the company announced disappointing results about two weeks ago. It only sold 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices in the first quarter of its fiscal year 2014. Heins assured investors that “BlackBerry will pursue every opportunity to create value for shareholders.”
Heins also promised that BlackBerry will launch more BlackBerry 10 devices over the next eight months. So far, it has released the all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry Q10 with a physical keyboard. It also announced the BlackBerry Q5, also with a physical keyboard, which will launch in a number of markets (including Canada) in the coming weeks.
Source : The Globe and Mail