Douglas College Library
Your research and information source
InfoSkills Module
Finding Company and Product Information
Marketing 1120
Student Name and ID: ___________________________________________________
Course and Section Number: _____________________________________________
Instructor: ______________________________
Date: ______________________
Purpose:
To research the marketing strategy developed by RESEARCH IN MOTION, the
company that makes BlackBerry wireless communication devices.
Basic Company Information: Canadian Business Resource (CBR)
From the Douglas College Library homepage <http://library.douglas.bc.ca>, follow these links:
Resources by Subject | Business | CBR: Canadian Business Resource
CBR: Canadian Business Resource
Click on the tab labelled Search the CBR Database at the top of the page.
Enter this in the Company Name box:
Research in Motion
Press ENTER on your keyboard, or click on the red Search button at the bottom of the page.
1. What is Research in Motion Limited’s ownership class?
 Privately-held corporation
 Publicly-traded corporation
2. Record the URL of Research in Motion Limited’s website:
http://__________________________________________________________
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3. Name TWO other Similar Public Firms to Research in Motion.
i) ____________________________________________________________________
ii) ____________________________________________________________________
Articles About Canadian Companies: CBCA
Return to the Business page (under Resources by Subject from the Library’s homepage).
Select the journal and magazine database CBCA, then select On Campus or Off Campus, as
appropriate.
Click on the Advanced tab near the top of the page. Use the drop-down menu in the top
Citation and indexing box to change the setting to Company/Org.
Enter this in the text box to the left of the Company/Org box:
Research in Motion
Click on Search.
4. How many documents did this search retrieve? _________________________
Scroll down the list of results to find this article:
Time to grow up
Andy Holloway. Canadian Business. Mar 13-Mar 26, 2006. Vol. 79, Iss. 6; p. 21
Click on Full Text to display the full article and its abstract (summary).
5. According to the abstract, what will win future sales for Research in Motion?
_________________________________________________________________
Read the full text of the article.
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6. Which company does this article name as one of Research in Motion’s chief rivals
in the corporate e-mail industry?
_______________________________________________________________________
Click on the Advanced tab at the top of the screen again.
To perform a search for articles in another database, click on the down-arrow in the box
labelled Database in the middle of the screen.
Change the database from Multiple databases to the ABI/INFORM Complete database.
Articles in Magazines & Trade Publications: ABI/Inform Complete
Ensure that Research in Motion still appears in the search box and that the Company/Org
search has been selected in the box to the right. Click on Search.
7. How many documents did this search retrieve? __________________________
8. How does the number of articles retrieved differ from the number in Question 4?
 More articles than in Question 4
 Fewer articles than in Question 4
 Same number of articles as in Question 4
9. Choose ONE explanation for your answer to the previous question:
 The search in Question 4 included a limit on the date of publication.
 The search in Question 4 was limited to scholarly articles.
 The search in Question 4 was performed in a different database.
 The two searches retrieved the same number of articles.
Scroll to the bottom of your list of articles. Here you will see your search again.
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Modify the search so that it looks like this:
AND
Research in Motion
marketing or advertising
Database:
(Company/Org)
(citation and abstract)
Business – ABI/INFORM Complete
Find this article in the new list of results:
Would you like some e-mail with that pizza?
Kate MacArthur. Advertising Age (Midwest region edition). Chicago: Jul 11,
2005. Vol. 76, Iss. 28; p. 3
Click on the title of the article to display more detailed information.
10. Record the following information for the article:
Article title: ______________________________________________________________
Author: _________________________________________________________________
Journal/magazine title: ____________________________________________________
Date of publication: _______________________________________________________
Volume _______________
Issue _______________ Starting page ______________
11. Which ONE of the five Subjects used to describe the topic of this article best
describes the idea of “marketing” or advertising”?
_______________________________________________________________________
Corporate Homepage: Research in Motion
In your Web browser’s Location or Address box at the very top of your screen, enter the
Research in Motion website address you recorded in Question 2 and press the Enter key.
Click on the Investors tab at the top of the page, then on Annual Report. Display the 2006
Annual Report.
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Scroll to page 6 (8 of 80) of this document.
12. In how many countries was the BlackBerry solution available at the end of fiscal
2006?
________________________________________________________________________
Continue to page 8 (10 of 80) and read the section entitled The Year Ahead.
13. List ONE of Research in Motion’s goals for 2007.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Close this window. Under the blue Products tab on the RIM homepage, click on BlackBerry
Solution.
Click on the appropriate link to display the information directed at small and medium
business. Click on BlackBerry Business Solutions. Use the drop-down options in the
industry box to go to Healthcare.
14. Name ONE of the business benefits that RIM claims BlackBerry offers those in
the healthcare industry.
________________________________________________________________________
Finding Industry Statistics: Statistics Canada
Return to the Library’s homepage. Use the Resources by Subject link to connect to the page
that lists the resources in Statistics.
Jump down the page to the section on Canada and connect to Statistics Canada, entering
through the English option.
Enter “wireless communication” (in quotations) in the search box and click on Search the
site.
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Display the latest news releases in The Daily and read the Telecommunication Statistics
dated May 9, 2006.
15. How many new customers did the wireless industry recruit in the last quarter of
2005?
_________________________________________________________________
Click on the black Home button at the top left of the page to return to the Statistics Canada
homepage and click on By subject to the left of the screen.
Follow these links:
Communications | Internet | Summary Tables in Canadian Statistics
View the document entitled Business and Government use of information and communications
technologies
16. In the year 2005, was the TOTAL use of electronic mail greater in the private or
public sector?
 Private sector
 Public sector
Click on the black Home button at the top left of the page to return to the Statistics Canada
homepage. Click on Learning Resources in the sidebar to the left, and then on E-STAT in
the yellow box. Click on Search CANSIM to the left.
Statistics Canada’s CANSIM database offers authoritative data on labour,
manufacturing, investment, international trade and much more.
In the search box, enter:
wireless communication
Select The phrase, then click on Search.
Display Table 358-0007. For Type of technology being used, select Wireless
communication. For Present and future intentions, click on the Select all button.
For the NAICS, select Private sector. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Retrieve
as a Table. On the next page, simply scroll down and click on Retrieve now.
17. In 2005, what percentage of Canadian enterprises were:
a) using wireless communication? _____________
b) planning to use wireless technology in the following year? __________
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Finding More Industry & Company Information: Strategis
Return to the Business page (under Resources by Subject from the Library’s homepage), scroll
down the page and click on Strategis and enter through the English option.
Do a search for “Research in Motion” (include the quotations).
This will retrieve a variety of links leading to a company profile, information specific to the
company, economic and industry analysis, and statistics.
Click on Sort by Date at the top of the list of results to list the most recent information first.
Display the page entitled Innovation and Technology.
Skip down the page to Commercializing Inventions and READ the information under
Introduction to Innovation. (Do not click on it.)
18. List the four stages of innovation presented here as “best practices”.
i) _______________________________________________________________
ii) ______________________________________________________________
iii) ______________________________________________________________
iv) ______________________________________________________________
19. Which of these levels has Research in Motion achieved?
__________________________________________________________________
Return to your search results and jump to the eighth page of the list.
Display the page entitled Wireless Technology in the Palm of Your Hand.
20. When this was written in 2005, how many subscribers did the BlackBerry
wireless platform have worldwide?
___________________________________________________________________
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