That's generally a good thing to say when the people that he has to calm the most are the Street and their demotivated workforce. People as a whole don't like change.
We techies know it is but RIM is very profitable and growing, the trade volume on the stock indicates that a lot of people think that they could be undervalued at the moment. They may even be under book value.
So techies know RIM is in trouble, and Wall Street is pricing RIM as though it is in trouble... The only people who think it isn't in trouble are inside RIM.
RIM is very profitable and growing
Actually the opposite is true: RIM profit drops 27 percent; shipments seen down[1], The Waterloo, Ontario, company said fiscal third-quarter earnings tumbled 71% on a charge related to a disastrous launch of a tablet competitor to Apple's iPad. And it forecast weak smartphone shipments in the current quarter. [2], etc, etc
They had recently been increasing volume (and to an extent profit) by cutting prices, of course there is only so far you can cut into prices before profit suffers.
Gruber referenced something about this not so long ago - someone had written an article showing that historically companies that do this appear good in the short term, but in the long term it is a huge danger sign.
Hence the person to whom you were replying may have been aware of the "profits are up" song RIM has been singing for a while now, but not aware of the most recent results which indicate a rude awakening is imminent.
You don't accomplish this change in people by saying things are fine - you act and do things that show you and the company is strong. That's the only way people will change their feelings. And you better be truthful when promoting your enthusiasm or it'll come back to bite you..
[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/at-researc...