RIM in talks with Samsung?
Posted Jan 17, 2012 12:49:23 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
According to tech website Boy Genius Report, Research In Motion is currently in talks to license its software to other vendors.
Sources tell www.bgr.com that RIM is most likely leaning toward an outright sale of one or more divisions, or possibly even the whole company.
The website reports the front runner is Samsung, which might be interested in RIM for a number of reasons, specifically its BlackBerry Messenger service or BBM.
The report then goes on to say that co-CEO Jim Balsillie is actively meeting with almost every company that might be interested in either a part or all of RIM, in addition to having talks about licensing.
The rumours are once again having an impact on the BlackBerry-makers share prices, which had jumped more than 9% in midday trading to more than $17.10 a share.
Tech analysts are reacting to the news. Carmi Levy tells 570 News Samsung has become a mobile computing powerhouse in recent years and there are a lot of reasons why purchasing RIM makes sense, “certainly adding RIM’s enterprise friendly capabilities, to its suite of offerings would be a huge win for a company that really is trying to break into the top-tier of mobile player.”
Levy says typically a rumour like this one would be considered to be quite “out there,” but given the source, there is reason to take heed, “Boy Genius Report has consistently been one of the most trusted sources of rumours in the tech space, especially around RIM.”
It’s very early in the life-cycle of this rumour, and Levy speculates that if it were to come true, and Samsung became the owner, that the existing RIM infrastructure on the RIM campus would stay open,”I think that would probably be the absolute last thing that we would see for a while. In fact I would see any buy-out at this point attempting to maintain as much of RIM’s infrastructure in the Waterloo Region as possible.”
News570@rogers.com
