“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.
MS always scares me. With so much power and cash even their mistakes can harm Apple. Big dump drunk bear stumbling around can knock you over or step on you.
All the MS lemmings out there who only use the default software that comes on their dull grey boxes.
This is why Apple has $20B in cash sitting on the back shelf.
i know RIM and its peeps. a few of their share holders. they are proud Canadians, and will probably rather watch the company go down in flames than sell to MS.
and for that, you have to give them props… just for that.
MS buying it would insure that the iPhone domination of the market, cause if there is anything that MS is ggod for; its taking a good company or format and running it into the ground….
All hail Balmer..
@ Peruchito:
It’s not really up to RIM – it’s up to the shareholders. If anyone, including MS, decides to make prime offer, it won’t matter how much pride they have, especially in this economy.
In 2 or 3 years we will all be laughing at this current market drop. Until then I am buying cheap real estate.
RIM getting bought out would be bad for everybody!
How can RIM be ‘worth’ $34 billion when they make only one product?
Well that’s one way to have your company go down the tubes.
Ah, now this is why I keep coming back to MacDailyNews. Juicy, scandalous, yet plausible tech rumor mongering of the highest order. This would indeed be a fine strategic fit – all the lemmings would get all their software from the Redmond mother ship. But the tragicomedy of watching MS try to integrate RIM into their operation would be fine entertainment. What would become of Windows Mobile? Would we see an ugly amalgamation of the blackberry and win mobile? Would MS kill it’s own child? Or would Blackberry become another Visio – with development essentially ceasing the day MS takes it over? RIM will undoubtedly do a scorched earth retreat, al la Jerry Yang, leaving MS with a fraction of what they thought they were getting. Oh, please be true, this would be fun to watch.
If MSFT buys out RIMM, then we can forget about the blackberry product line ever regaining any kind of technical lead.
As an AAPL shareholder, I would love to see Ballmer take that bait.
-jcr
We can speculate all we want, but what will the regulators and lawyers do with this? Especially since this involve an American and a Canadian company? Lots of people looking this over on both sides of the border.
They won’t buy it. Ballmer’s bum is still sore off the Yahoo! fiasco.
@qka – That would further add to the distraction, with regulators from both countries delaying the closure of the deal, as well as leaving the potential in the air for nixing it outright.
And didn’t I see a story not too long ago (possibly on MacNN) about how MS is *still* vaguely interested in possibly buying all of Yahoo, or all of a Yahoo-AOL combination, down the road? MS employees must be so proud – the company they work for values their contributions so much, that it’s actively looking elsewhere, anywhere, for something completely different.
Where can we find real stats about marketshare for mobile phones?
Okay, the new MS subsidiary would then be called RIDSM (=research in downward, spiralling motion).
Sounds like a match made in heaven
Sounds like a deadly disease.
Buy ’em. And watch Microsoft engineer a slow train wreck!
What someone could explain to me is why M$ is not pursuing Yahoo/Icahn now that Yahoo is currently worth what, half what they were back when their board was fighting for their lives?
Isn’t Yahoo and their worth more venerable now
and prime for an Icahn-led hostile takeover from a company with tons in cash reserve?
RIM may be down a lot, but cmon – not too long ago AAPL was over 200 a share, and they are now at what, 93? Not as bad, but darn close.
Just once I’d like to see MS invent something rather than buy it, just once.
Yes, this would totally kill RIM. It would hand the SmartPhone market to Apple, and possibly Android.
-1 + -1 = -2
Two birds with one brick.