“There’s been rampant speculation that the rescue strategy for Research In Motion would be for someone to buy the company,” Eric Savitz reports for Forbes. “There has been, at various times, idle speculation about a wide-range of intriguing but highly unlikely potential suitors. Facebook! Apple! Google! Amazon! But nothing ever comes of these rumors, and for very good reason: There’s little reason to buy what is effectively a dying mobile phone platform.”
“Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair this morning weighed in with a grim evaluation of what the future holds for the BlackBerry smartphone maker,” Savitz reports. “‘We don’t see an M&A opportunity near term, mainly because we don’t believe RIM has much to offer,’ he writes bluntly. ‘If there was value in the Network Operating Center back in the day, it seems to have faded. If we have learned one thing from the iPhone, it’s that the device’s security is ‘good enough’ for the government and ‘good enough’ for the enterprise. We have seen every type of company replace BlackBerry with the iPhone over the last 3 years. If there is value in RIM’s Blackberry servers placed around the world in large numbers, that value is in decline, as those same servers continue to get ripped out on what seems like a monthly basis.’
Savitz reports,”The great hope for RIM is BlackBerry 10. But Blair thinks it will be DOA. ‘We don’t see any scenario where BB10 can compete meaningfully against the three major smartphone operating systems,’ he writes… Not least, Blair offers some simple advice on what to do with the weak-selling PlayBook tablet: Kill it off an move on.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: DCW. But, not for much longer.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tayster” for the heads up.]
A formerly great company that is dying and in need of a buyout?
Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Microsoft . . . with a big check.
Come on in!
“Three major smartphone operating systems,” eh? And who is the 3rd? Windows Phone?!
Dear analysts, making clueless statements like that does not enhance your credibility.
Don’t look now but Blackberrys are outselling Nokia Windows 7 phones by a handy margin.
I can’t even use a BB anymore. Just too painful an experience.
What about RIM’s patents?
But, but, it has a physical keyboard!
+!
The faithful over at crackberry are fervent in their belief that BB10 and QNX platform will be “gamechangers”. They are especially jacked up that one dev was able to emulate iOS on a BB10 dev device. They claim this proves the superiority of the BB’s platform and eventual dominance in the market once again.
Wow how sad 🙁
I wish Steve Ballmer would buy it with all his billions of zune profits. This surely would be the crowning moment to a successful career as a professional slaphead.
“Professional slaphead” is probably the best epithet I have ever heard for Ballmer!