Although iCloud has yet to be released, analysts are already saying that it could put the final nail in Blackberry’s coffin, eliminating the last advantage RIM has over Apple in the smartphone market: the BlackBerry Push Service.
RIM could see its “>BlackBerry push network hurt by iCloud, which can deliver everything from music to video and software, analysts at Sterne Agee told investors Friday. The company cut its price target on RIM shares to $44, down from $52. Only a day earlier, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu described iCloud as a “very big deal” allowing Apple to put rivals far in the background.
“We believe reaching cloud music deals would be a great start and further enhance AAPL from GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, and others,” he said. For the past decade, Apple’s competitors “so far have failed to put even a minor dent to iTunes,” Wu adds.
In a related note, UBS analyst Maynard Um forecasts iCloud initially attracting 200 million iTunes customers, or 10 percent of those signed-up for the Apple service. He believes the Cupertino, Calif. company could recoup some of its investment in free apps through a $15 per month subscription fee for a hosting service.
But iCloud’s benefits could also assist boosting iPhone sales, giving a cloud-based alternative to requiring a PC to sync handsets. The result: Apple’s potential market could skyrocket to 5.1 billion customers, up from 1.3 billion, he advises. Also, iCloud could spawn many other services, such as content streaming, voice recognition, photo sharing, and more. Um foresees this “leading to new iOS devices built around iCloud services.”
That huge data center in North Carolina and the wild memory storage buying spree Apple has been on means another advantage for the tech giant, according to another Wall Street observer. Apple “will likely offer much more available memory than competitors since its users have much larger libraries of music, movies and photos,” says Barclay Capital’s Ben Reitzes. The iCloud service will help sell more Macs, iPhones, iPods and iPads, according to Reitzes.
