At what point does a corporate turnaround simply become a busted company? For investors in BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), patience must be running thin by this point. BlackBerry has been in full-on turnaround mode since 2011, and yet the company continues to lose money and see revenues shrink. BBRY stock hasn’t gone anywhere for years, and is slipping again as of late.

BlackBerry stock owners are promoting 2017 as the big year for the company. Hardware sales are gone now.

Investors can finally focus fully on security and software sales. QNX for autonomous driving could be a big hit, or at least stir up some hype. And licensing revenues for the company’s branded smartphones are an upside option.

However, BBRY stock has a lot of underwater investors stuck. If the turnaround stalls out, yet again, look for many suffering owners to finally bail. Is 2017 finally the year to get back into BlackBerry stock?

BBRY Stock Cons

Persistently Unprofitable: Blackberry last made an operating annual profit in 2012. At this point, it only infrequently even posts positive EBITDA on a quarterly basis after striping out adjustments. Yes, the company has massively slashed costs to stem the bleeding, but revenue has fallen even faster.

In FY 2010, Blackberry brought in $19.9 billion in revenues. This is down to just $1.5 billion over the last 12 months. Sure, there is talk of a turnaround now with the business pivoting away from smartphones. But we’ve heard plenty of turnaround plans for BBRY stock over the last half decade, and none have produced results. The fact that Jim Mackey, the company’s head of corporate strategy, left in February should do nothing to reassure investors.

Licensing May Not Amount to Much: Part of the new strategy is to license Blackberry’s name out to phone manufacturers. BlackBerry secured a deal in December to license its name and security software out to Chinese phone manufacturer TCL Communications.

Unfortunately for BBRY stock, the company didn’t announce the terms of the deal with TCL. That’s probably because the terms weren’t compelling. TCL already sells a huge volume of Alcatel phones. Yet, for a 13-year license to use the Alcatel name, TCL paid them just $40 million. Otherwise stated, the license went for just $3 million a year. There’s little reason to expect BlackBerry got a better deal. And the company’s licensing arrangement in India appears equally unpromising.

Security Focus May Not Work: BBRY has long maintained its reputation as a leading security company within the smartphone space. While consumers bailed to flashier phones years ago, security-focused clients such as sensitive government departments stuck with BlackBerry until the end.

Lately, BlackBerry has acquired a bunch of small niche security software companies. They’ve starting to package everything together in BlackBerry Secure. This product could pick up traction both as a standalone option and as a feature that goes into the BlackBerry-branded smartphones. However, the hype for security companies appears to be fading.

Despite all sorts of Russian hacking stories, security companies have lost ground. Palo Alto Networks Inc (NYSE:PANW) just collapsed on earnings. FireEye Inc (NASDAQ:FEYE) has punished its investors for quite a few quarters now. I could go on. BBRY stock won’t have a good future if it follows its peers’ trajectory.

BBRY Stock Pros

Self-Driving Car Upside: BlackBerry is garnering attention as a potential self-driving car play. The province of Ontario has put in place measures making it easier for firms to test self-driving vehicles there. BlackBerry is one of the company’s participating in Ontario’s pilot program.

Furthermore, BBRY’s QNX software is seeing increased uptake among automakers. Its contract wins include a big one with Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F). As of yet, there is little sign BlackBerry’s advances in this division are leading to meaningful revenues. Software revenues have barely budged over the past year. The bears deride BBRY’s self-driving car ambitions as merely hype to sustain a failing turnaround story, and frankly, there’s a good chance that they’re right. However, self-driving is really hot right now, even if BlackBerry doesn’t have a winner on its hands, BBRY stock could surge in the short run.

Strong Balance Sheet: Say what you will about BlackBerry’s weaknesses, you can’t deny the balance sheet’s strength. BBRY’s comes with almost $1.3 billion in cash and marketable securities. And there isn’t much on the liability side of the balance sheet. Adding it up, a quarter of BBRY stock’s market cap is supported by its net cash position.

BlackBerry’s turnaround has taken longer than most investors would have hoped. However, given its fiscal strength, management still has plenty of time to try to find some path forward. BlackBerry can continue its turnaround efforts without any threats to liquidity, and BBRY stock has some built-in downside protection.

High Short Interest: While short interest isn’t generally a good reason to go long on a stock on its own, it can help confirm a long thesis. High short interest, particularly in a beaten up stock, often leads to big ensuing pops.

BlackBerry stock’s short interest remains elevated. Short sellers have maintained short positions of about 50 million shares over the last couple months. This is down from a peak above 60 million shares earlier last fall. However, that short interest still represents almost 10% of float. And BBRY stock only trades about 3 million shares a day on average. This means it would take more than three weeks of trading to exit their short positions. Should a positive development lift BlackBerry stock, short sellers would have trouble getting out of their positions without causing the price to spiral higher.

Verdict on BlackBerry Stock

Many people expect BBRY stock to turn things around in 2017. It could happen. However, the company’s strengths don’t indicate that a turnaround is immediately in the cards. High short interest and a strong balance sheet are supporting factors, but they won’t get the business back on track. And QNX needs to prove a lot more when it comes to self-driving cars. The company’s weaknesses are very real, and will likely continue to weigh on BlackBerry stock.

At the time of this writing, Ian Bezek had no positions in any of the aforementioned stocks. You can reach him on Twitter at @irbezek.