The weakening U.S. Dollar and reduced marginal production costs on new phone models could help drive margins in upcoming quarters for Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM). On February 11, the day RIM preannounced its fiscal Q4 earnings, the dollar was strong versus the EURO and Japanese Yen. Since RIM's CEO James Balsillie spoke, the U.S. dollar has weakened considerably. For example: currency rates on February 11th were: EUR/USD=1.28 and USD/JPY=90.5. Today, the rates are 1.33 (down 4%) and 98.54 (down 8.8%), respectively. This currency effect may help drive RIMM's profit outlook and guidance for the upcoming quarters when overseas sales in foreign currencies are converted back to the U.S. and Canadian Dollar. In separate news reported on September 26, 2008 by Business Week, RIM had stated that it planned for gross margins to shrink in fiscal Q4 due to the production of new form factors, such as the Blackberry Bold cell phone. On April 2nd when RIMM reports its fiscal Q4 earnings, Wall Street will see how much progress RIMM has made in improving its production efficiencies and their impact to gross margins.

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