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Microsoft, Nokia, and Amazon Contemplated RIM Takeover
CSHARP123 writes "WSJ's anonymous sources indicates that MS and Nokia casually considered bidding on Research in Motion Ltd. The outcome of the talks are not clear. The Journal suggests that this wasn't anything more than a simple idea that came up at one of the regular meetings between senior executives from all three companies — perhaps it could have even been just a casual talk — but one wonders how Microsoft and Nokia executives think there is profit to be made by this take over. Maybe RIM provides a good backdoor entry for MS into the enterprise space for its Windows Phone 7? Recently, Amazon was also considering bidding on RIM. It is interesting to see who will gobble up RIM."
A brief read of the news recently makes it clear that the patent situation is completely out of control.
The hope was that Google buying Motorola would create enough balance between the portfolio's of Google, MS, and Apple that it would be in all of their interests to return to some form of truce.
RIM has an enormous stockpile of patents - if MS gets them, all bets are off.
How sad that RIM has basically backed themselves into the corner. They used to have a rock solid product and reputation in the business world for communications devices, enterprise encrypted emails... now flop after flop and stiff competition and suddenly they are on their death bed. Sad, but more pathetic than anything.
Slightly used, may be missing a few lifeboats but otherwise in decent condition.
Free iceberg included!
So all your calls would take twice as long as estimated to get there and be broken up when they do?
Interesting troll. You passed on three easy targets in order to jab Amazon. Well played.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
They may throw away the BB OS and we'll have less choice.
I would rather BB exist by themselves. Look what happened to Maemo, MeeGo, WebOS, Palm and all these other promising designs. It's bad for us consumers if BB disappears.
In the UK BBs are good because of the cheap monthly contracts compared to other phones. I think they've reversed the stereotype of being business-only and managed to be attractive to consumers.
Has anyone noticed the ridiculous volume of negative RIM/BB articles recently? It's like some large interests want to kill the popularity of BB. The date of the downtime of BBM was particularly interesting too...
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
It sounds to me that someone wants to pump up the RIM stock price with rumors . . . before options or whatever expire at the end of the year.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
With the exception of Amazon, it seems like big players of the early 00's who are now considered the old phogies of the tech market is trying to buy off the other old phogie.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Agreed. At least, acquisition by Microsoft would be a clean death.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Maybe RIM provides a good backdoor entry for MS..." Oooh my!!
Blackberry is a business device, meant to facilitate business communication in secure and reliable way and not serve as a personal entertainment device or attempt to appear to be cool. Forgetting this is what put RIM in its current situation.
I don't really care about the Blackberry, but QNX is a good real-time microkernel operating system, damaged by being resold first to Harmon (an audio company) and now RIM. During all the resales, it's gone from closed source to open (but not free) source to closed source to open source to closed source. This killed all open-source interest in QNX, which used to have a version of Firefox and was usable as a desktop OS, although nobody did this unless they were doing real-time work. QNX, pre-Harmon, contributed heavily to the development of Eclipse, and Eclipse's ability to work on C and C++ programs comes from QNX.
Some industrial automation company should buy QNX. Maybe one will.
I had an argument with one of the China RIM execs that got thrown off of a plane and arrested last week (boy is he a fun drunk to be around) 3 or 4 years ago. And I told him the same thing:
Me: "Yeah Blackberry is THE business solution at the moment but as an IT guy myself people are already starting to ask how they can get these new fangled iPhones into the business. There is going to be a trickle up effect that you guys sho-."
Him: "What are you an idiot! Apple has NO chance at EVER unseating us. Are you kidding me?! What the hell does a punk like you know?"
And in this manner he carried on and drank long into the night: Blackberry has NOTHING to fear, the iPhone is a toy (just look at the games), and consumers have ZERO effect on business purchases.
And every time I read another death knell for RIM I think of that jackass. If he was one of their global decision makers, and that attitude fit into their corporate culture.... They were lucky to last this long.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
As a business device, even with the "co-operation" (which they resisted), the business email remains securely transmitted. But in those countries, the government has legal access to any email servers inside the country anyway. If you expect privacy you shouldn't be trying to operate there. If these countries were abandoned by businesses they'd change their tune to save their economy. I don't think RIM has forgotten what they do best, the share holders and analysts have. They constantly blast RIM for failing to appeal to consumers, forgetting that the BlackBerry was built for enterprise usage.
All the bits and pieces for RIM are dependent on Microsoft back end. Microsoft buying them to slide into existing Microsoft centric environments is blatantly obvious. Only a blithering idiot could miss that. Nokia's interest is something that eludes me however. With the exception of making themselves more attractive to Microsoft, I don't see the fit.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.