Is RIM’s push into the consumer space coming at too high a cost? The BlackBerry maker has been aggressively courting consumers, reaching out to them with TV ads, developing new software, and rolling out more consumer-friendly devices, such as the touch-screen Storm. At CTIA, its expected to unveil a variety of consumer-oriented offerings, including a full-length TV service.

SEE ALSO: Report: RIM Planning To Launch Full-Length TV Service

Despite an increase in its share of the smartphone market—up to 19.5 percent in the last three months of 2008, from 10.9 percent a year earlier—these efforts, notes the WSJ.com, have taken a toll on RIM’s gross profit margins, which have shrunk to 40 percent, down from 50 percent in the last six months. They’ve also helped knock RIM’s share price down a third from its July 2008 high of $147 per share.

In an investor call last fall, Co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie called RIM’s strategy a “land grab” and that the company was looking for long-term gain with it. He said of their consumer push, “So we could have a sweeter margin for a couple of quarters and we might not torque the growth quite as much and then we will rue that for the next 20 years, that we gave up the key land for a little bit of interim gratification.”