General Consultant Discussion

It's all but over for RIM. I cannot imagine who is going to buy BlackBerry for much more than the book value of their patents.

BlackBerrys are great phones, unfortunately everyone wants their phones to be micro-computers and that is not what BlackBerrys are.

Supposedly they have significant ip in the security area. But I have no idea if it would travel well to iOS or Android.

Well, I still miss my BB. Didn't have to track three e-mail accounts, loved the filtering capability of it and I could read it in the bright sunlight. I'm sure I'll learn to except its replacement Droid some day............................

I had a Windows phone (T-Mobile Dash) that was 2 or 3 years old when I got a Blackberry, and using the BB felt like I was stepping backward in time. I like my Android (Droid X2) a lot better.

I had a Droid X2 -- loved it. One of my favorite Android devices.

Funny. I actually hadn't seen anyone using a Blackberry in a while, but I was with a guy yesterday who was banging away on his. I asked him ""What's with the Blackberry?"". He said, ""Oh...I've tried those other phones, but I just can't get used to typing on them."". I just said ""well...you will...."".

This is going to be a massively ugly meltdown. I suspect that RIM may have been stuffing their channel full of product to provide the illusion of at least treading water... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-29/rim-writedown-risked-with-1-billion-inventory-corporate-canada.html

Sadly predictable, and mostly avoidable. Truly sad.

Sony isn't far behind

Market cap is down to about 5.5 billion. Google purchased Motorola Mobility for $12 billion.For RIMM at this level the value of patents is potentially attractive to someone. If RIM had an OS 10 that was shipping and people were able to review prior to purchase - I think there value would be much higher. I suspect RIM is in trouble on the OS 10 upgrade and that's going to very negatively impact the sale price. If RIM is in fact having issues with OS 10 they would want to sell the company sooner rather than later. If OS delays and bad news hits I bet another 1-2 billion of value disappears.

I wonder if HP is looking at them.

Yea, HP is a company that loves to spend billions on companies and flush them down the toilet...Palm...Autonomy...

To me it seems like Microsoft is the best match --- RIM has an enterprise focus, popularity overseas. However I think that MSFT is already busy with Nokia and Windows Phone. Surely the RIM OS would not survive but I don't know if RIM has enough value for it to be worthwhile for a big company like MSFT. And as Mark said - HP in a way spoiled a lot of this fantasy of big company takes over little company and works miracle....

This article just came in: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/rims-impending-collapse-by-the-numbers/78559?tag=nl.e539

For what it's worth, my note about HP was tongue in cheek. I suspect that RIM will be used for several B-school case studies in ""how intro new technology and concept,"" ""how hard it is for a tech pioneer to embrace the next generation,"" and ""how to screw up governance.