The blogosphere was awash in an ocean of lamentation last week over Research In Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) disappointing quarterly earnings. Some commentators launched into anticipatory mourning for the BlackBerry, while others argued that reports of the beloved enterprise device's demise were premature.

RIM announced a drop in quarterly profit and "and offered investors little hope of a turnaround anytime soon," Reuters reported Thursday. The results led Michael Humphrey at Forbes to post "a reluctant personal requiem" for the BlackBerry. Humphrey recalled the BlackBerry of the mid-2000s as his best smartphone ever, for the simple reason that it worked. Connectivity was reliable, and voice quality was clear.

"BlackBerry revolutionized the way we use phones because of its uncanny ability to help when you needed it the most," he wrote, adding that applications are what's important now.

"Fair or unfair, once you compare the endless expansion of your phone's capabilities, BlackBerry loses its luster. And if today's news is a sharp [peal] of the bell that tolls for Research in Motion (at least as a broad consumer product), this very well could read like a classic tragedy. A once great visionary lost its sight," he wrote.

Not everyone thinks the writing is on the wall for RIM, however. Forbes's Brian Caulfield pointed out four things the company can boast about, beginning with profitability. While the Canadian company is less profitable than it once was, it still made $419 million in the quarter.  It also has about $1.4 billion in cash on hand and a boatload of patents.

What's more, there simply are a lot of BlackBerry users around. The subscriber base for the device rose 40 percent, and enterprise IT still finds the BlackBerry relatively manageable. And finally, Caulfield noted, there's always the off chance that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) could lose their luster: "These two companies can't keep it up forever. Can they?"

For more:
- see the Reuters article
- see Michael Humphrey's post at Forbes
- see Brian Caulfield's post at Forbes

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