“The recent plunge in the market value of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion could leave the company vulnerable to a takeover from a well-capitalized buyer such as Microsoft Corp.,” Wojtek Dabrowski reports for Reuters.

“RIM’s shares, which were worth more than $148 on the Nasdaq market just four months ago, now are trading around the $60 mark amid the U.S. financial crisis and margin pressures the company is experiencing because of expenses related to launching new smartphones,” Dabrowski reports. “Microsoft, meanwhile, is striving to remain competitive against Internet mammoth Google Inc, which has made recent forays into mobile phone technology, and against Apple Inc, the maker of the popular iPhone.”

“‘RIM is a massive strategic fit’ for Microsoft, said Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek. ‘I’m fairly certain they have a standing offer to buy them at $50 (a share).’ In that scenario, RIM would have to continue declining to at least $40, thus allowing an offer of $50 to stand as a premium bid,” Dabrowski reports. “At current levels of $60 a share, RIM has a market value of about $34 billion. An offer of $50 a share would value the company at just over $28 billion.”

More in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Manu" for the heads up.]

Other than the iPhone going unlocked around the world, we cannot imagine a more efficient RIM killing machine than Microsoft. And anything that further distracts the already massively-distracted Microsoft while Apple unabatedly continues converting Windows sufferers into Mac users is just fine by us.

Buy RIM, Microsoft. Please! Ruin their hardware by outsourcing it to your Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death assembler(s) and further retard whichever mobile OS you choose to continue peddling by attempting to pollute it with elements from the one you choose to discard.