RIM or Nokia: Which has the better turnaround prospects?

At least RIM has a paddle

Zack Whittaker: RIM and Nokia are both up the creek, though RIM has a paddle. The BlackBerry brand still commands respect in mobile circles, despite its name suffering thanks to the mismanagement of its corporate parent. When people think of Nokia, they think of 1990's aged brick-sized phones that when dropped would do more damage to the sidewalk than the phone would.

From a financial point of view, the two companies have lost more than 80 percent of their respective market caps in the past five years. RIM has a secure enterprise infrastructure alongside phone-making hardware unit, while Nokia has only the latter. RIM, despite its share price slump, is still an attractive sell. Nokia just has phones and patents. While patents are today's gold dust weaponry, once the litigation wars are over, Nokia will have nothing left.

Nokia's exciting new devices

Matthew Miller: While Apple and Google enjoy the spotlight, Nokia and RIM are trying to stop the bleeding. RIM has primarily focused on the enterprise and this can sustain them for a while, but consumers are bringing more of their own devices to the workplace and RIM's devices are not nearly as desirable as today's modern touchscreen devices.

Nokia made a significant choice to go with Windows Phone and their first two devices in the U.S. are reportedly doing very well. The public has been slow to adopt Windows Phone, but there has been a steady trend upward in sales since launch and the U.S. public is finally getting reacquainted with Nokia.

Nokia's Windows Phones are exciting devices, the applications blow away what is found on BlackBerrys, and they license technology to the other players, while RIM showed off an updated keyboard and some camera software that is coming to BB 10.