Combing through Research in Motion’s (RIMM) 6-K filing with the SEC dated Dec. 19, which covers the company’s third fiscal quarter ended in November, Avian Securities wireless analyst Matthew Thornton writes that the company’s prospects are still intact as it moves past product delays to introducing new BlackBerrys, including the Curve 8900, also known as the “Javelin,” along with November’s lineup of Storm, Flip and Bold.

Thornton trolls through various stats from the filing, including the fact that U.S. sales, which are 58 percent of revenue, were down nine percent in Q3 from the prior quarter, though up 62 percent year over year.

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Research In Motion (RIMM) turns out to be yet another company that simply can’t escape the clutches of the crumbling global economy.

Several analysts weighed in today with estimate cuts, pressuring the stock.

Merrill Lynch’s Vivek Arya cut this EPS estimate for the fiscal third quarter ended November to 80 cents from 95 cents, which is now below the Street at 92 cents. For the February 2009 fiscal year, he goes to $3.45, from $3.61, and for 2010, he goes to $4.08, from $4.45. Arya cited a number of factors for the downgrade, including macro headwinds, the late North American launch of both the Storm and the Bold, and increased competition from the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. He also notes that warnings from Best Buy, Circuit City and Intel suggest we are in for weak consumer demand in calendar Q4. “While smartphone demand would normally be more resilient due to carrier promotions and productivity benefits, the current environment demands caution,” he writes. His target price on the stock drops to $65, from $80.

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From Citigroup’s Jim Suva this morning comes the mother of all Research in Motion (RIMM) reports, 21 pages long, under the title “Outlook is Increasingly Binary.” Suva says that given uncertainty as to whether RIM’s recently announced new BlackBerrys will hit the market in time for the holidays, there is a wide swath of estimate revisions that are possible, up or down, for the company’s earnings.

Writes Suva, “Investors are unsure if Bold will hit AT&T (T) and if Storm will be at Verizon [Communications' Verizon Wireless] (VZ) in time/scale for the holidays.”

Suva provides a handy graphic, a flowchart or decision tree, with possible outcomes. There’s a 25 percent chance RIM’s new products do not reach stores for the holidays, in which case, the stock goes to $45. More likely is that the products do make it in time, consumer uptake is strong, and profit margins improve as a result.

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Not that you’d notice it from yesterday’s stock action, but Citigroup analyst Jim Suva thinks BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIMM) is setting itself up for a strong second half of the year with the introduction over the next several weeks of its 3G version of the BlackBerry, the “Bold.”

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