Should Microsoft buy Research In Motion?
With shares of Research In Motion among those that have seen a massive drop in recent months, Reuters on Friday made the case that the company could make a juicy acquisition target for Microsoft.
There are several reasons that could lead one to that conclusion. RIM is strong in the corporate phone arena, the area of most interest for Microsoft. Microsoft's OS has had trouble keeping pace feature-wise and its next version, Windows Mobile 7, is running quite late. And, of course, the RIM shares that were trading near $150 a few months ago are now at around $53.
That said, I'm not seeing it. The company already has too many mobile operating systems. Microsoft has already scooped up Danger, which uses its own operating system for the T-Mobile Sidekick.
As longtime analyst Michael Gartenberg notes, Microsoft already has a strong product for taking corporate mail onto phones and buying RIM would put the company further in the device-making business.
Plus, even with the recent drop in RIM's shares, the company is still valued at north of $30 billion. For that price, Microsoft could afford to offer Yahoo nearly twice its current value. And Microsoft's online business is hurting for market share way more than the mobile unit.
Anyway, that's my take. What do you think? Sound off in the comments section or drop me a note.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Paws off one of the greatest innovators in the world.
Those people in Waterloo Ontario are geniuses.
They don't need your help.
Care to bakc that up with real hard facts?
I guess not.
Nice fantasy
Seriously... Unless MSFT orchestrates a hostile takeover (anyone else remember how well that idea went with the YHOO attempt?), RIM would most likely tell Ballmer to go take a flying leap, and there's nothing Ballmer could do about it (especially now when MSFT's stock growth is sucking mud and they're already committed to that $40bn buy-back program and a recent incur of $6bn in debt).
/P
Apple has none of that.
Enterprises are avoiding the iPhone due to the complete lack of security (all apps running as root, no device security, no protection, etc), as well as the security nightmare that is iTunes that comes as part of it. The problems that the unit has had with 'push' email, messages getting locked / stuck on the local phone that requires you to completely wipe and reload the entire phone losing all data on it as a result- well, there's been a lot of problems with integration that the RIM untis simply do not have.
The iPhone is a pretty nice device, but it's not for business. The Enterprise Business Market has spoken and they don't want it. It is doing quite well as a consumer device though and that is what Apple is targeting.
I think there is no need to buy RIM. I'm rather surprised that rumors like this even get any traction at all.
The rest is mere blathering on your part.
PS: You may not have been around for this, but in Blackberry's early days, the headaches were legion... they all had to go through teething troubles. Only diff is, while the iPhone is rising very well above theirs and RIM already has, Windows Mobile is still mired and sinking in theirs.
/P
While it would add significant on-demand capabilities to MS it would be a "huge" buy.
Would RIM sell to Microsoft? Yes, they would. The majority holding institutional stockholders would dump RIM in an heartbeat if Microsoft offers a premium for their stock price, especially in this environment. They have no loyalties.
I'm guessing the board and the co-CEOs would also seriously entertain a Microsoft offer, because they are professionals unlike say a certain CEO we know at that other search engine company.
As a technologist, I see RIM's has a lot of problems, despite the fact that my RIM friends love the place to death. Not the least is RIM requires a huge amount of centralized infrastructure (for things like provisioning, push messaging, etc.) It's an antiquated architecture leftover from two-way paging days.
Someone mentioned RIM is Java based, and that's true not only on the phones but also in-house (their "backend" apps are mostly Java except for some performance items.)
But Microsoft buying RIM would NOT be for its technology as implemented today. What they would be buying is RIM's marketshare, plus some IP. Microsoft is known for buying companies with different technology sets anyway (even Hotmail way back then, which was a FreeBSD shop before acquisition.)
Obviously MSFT and RIM already collaborate very closely together (and getting closer every day with the latest OS update) so from a business perspective they already have great synergy. RIM and MS Exchange are like twins separated at birth.
There's simply no better way for Apple to succeed, than to have MS "Zune" Research in Motion.
Ballmer?
GO FOR IT.
- by Foffaf October 11, 2008 4:02 AM PDT
- Currently I'm using 2 PDA phones, one is Samsung Omnia based on WinMo 6.1 and the other one is Blackberry 8830. I'll say no to Microsoft buying RIM, unless Microsoft could make a better, smaller, and faster mobile OS with minimum hardware reqs. Once RIM is merged to MS the great email efficiency that belong to Blackberry will be gone. :(
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