$RIMM currently up in pre-market trading due to upgrade by Peter Misek

As of 8:45 am EST, RIM is up almost 7% to US$15.96 in pre-market trading after noted RIM critic and Jefferies analyst Peter Misek upgraded the stock to buy from hold and raised his price target to US$19.50 from US$13.00.  Yes…. THAT Peter Misek.

Mr. Misek had a few notes to support this upgrade including

• He says RIM will enable corporate BlackBerry email on iPhones and Android devices.
• RIM will indeed bring BBM to android and iOS
• RIM will add “bring your own device sandboxing” to other platforms
• He believes the probability for success is at the high end of his “20-30%” range he has previously stuck to
• If all goes well, he thinks the stock could climb to $56 in the next 12 months
• He believes Q1 2014 and Q2 2014 will come in well above consensus due to the increase in average revenue per unit sold of BB10 devies.  Meaning, RIM will make more money off every BB10 sale than current BB7 sales
• He notes also that developers are supporting BB10 way more than expected

Now none of the above is really shocking, and, for many of us, we have known that things like developer interest has been strong for a while now.  The thing to take away from this is basically this, one of the most harshest critics of RIM and BlackBerry is now turning bullish about their prospects.

Its about time right?  Should be interesting to see what happens to the stock today when the market opens!