Funny story -- we pretty much heard this
exact same rumor floating around last August, but given the current
economic situation, we're inclined to believe this one a
good bit more. A recent
Reuters report is pointing out that RIM (like practically every other company right about now) is ripe for the picking, and any outfit with a serious load of cash reserves could get themselves quite a bargain. Given that the Redmond mega-corp has shown interest before (and clearly has plenty of Greenbacks), we were particularly interested in Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek's quote: "I'm fairly certain [Microsoft] has a standing offer to buy [RIM] at $50 a share." If you'll recall, RIM's stock sat at $148 per share just four months ago, and now, it's hovering around $60. As expected, Microsoft had no comment on the report, but don't be surprised to see something go down if Wall Street keeps hemorrhaging.
[Via
Electronista]
posted October 10th 2008 9:33AM
I think this is great move for Microsoft to buy RIM and solidify itself as the close second in the smartphone arena.
This is undoubtedly good for Microsoft, but bad, I think, for the consumer. On the enterprise push-email front Blackberry is the only major competitor for Exchange. If MS were to subsume RIM this competition, and the innovation which stems from it, would be gone.
Well, Win Mobile is possible on all devices. It can even replace business line Nokia phones, Sony Ericsons... But not RIM !! Because, people are using Blackberry for its Software and applications and NOT for the hardware !! Blackberry Bold has same hardware as some Motrolla Win Mobile 6 phone with QWERTY keyboard... But its the Blackberry services...!!!
Lets say that did happen. What would that mean for future RIM products? Running winmo?
I agree with rock99rock (and hope that he's correct, also). It would be stupid of MS to eliminate the Blackberry OS. Rather than eliminating their competition for WinMo (by eliminating Blackberry OS) they could be enjoying the profits from both. Not to mention that Palm has seen good feedback by allowing consumers to choose between Palm or WinMo on some of their more recent devices.
Having M$ engineering to learn Java 101
Ohhhh nooooo, the Apocalypse is coming
There's no need for the Blackberry OS if this merger was to become true. Just natively incorporate Blckberry Connect into WM7. Voila!
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ataglance/connect/
Microsoft purchased Danger (creators of the T-Mobile Sidekick) a while back and they have released a few new products since then without WinMo. Microsoft is more interested in getting all of Blackberry's customers than they are with forcing WinMo on everybody, there's pretty much zero chance they would scrap the Blackberry OS.
There's too much in the way of BB specific apps that are really integrated into the BB API that it'd take quite a lot of effort to provide a wrapper for those to work properly with winmo...at least that's what i'll be telling myself in the hope they keep with the BB OS as I don't want to rewrite my work for winmo.
Who the hell ranked up Ike Turner? The BB is ages ahead of WinMo.
If Microsoft tries to force the BB business onto the WM platform, they shouldn't waste their time buying RIMM @ $50/share. They should just give the money directly to Apple and Google, and cut out the middleman.
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no !!!!!!!!!!
You certainly didn't write that on your iPhone
I think the same thing. bbos is awesome. i don't want my curve to bsod ever five minutes.
and before you all start flaming, i know, bsod's are few and far between, it was a joke. get over it.
still i think the bbos is awesome, especially what they're doing with 4.6. i think m$ would be stupid to try to phase it out.
So.... should I be buying RIM stock?
If by RIMM stock you mean stocking up on BB OS Blackberrys...
that IMHO would be most tragic.
Agreed.
If it became true, Steve Jobs would really suffer a heart attack this time!
adds CNN's I-Report RSS's feed to reader....
All of the reports about his death are greatly exaggerated.
Steve won't have a heart attack over this, he will throw a party.
Microsoft will do what it always does in this kind of deal. They will take what's good out of the BB and stuff it into the WinMo. There is no way they will abandon their own OS for the BB OS.
They will transition it all to their own OS and con people into continuing to buy the Blackberry. What was a great OS will slowly become the Microsoft bloated, buggy OS.
oh god no.
I loved the winmo phones that I've owned in the past.... but I love my blackberry and I don't want it to have the same experience. constant mergers/purchases leave no room for separate outfits to innovate.
=(
I think it would be great for consumers. Blackberry OS + WinMo. It'd be great.
Really hoping that Microsoft snatches them up.
Are you kidding? Name one thing Windows Mobile has over BlackBerry's OS? My Windows Mobile experience has made me very glad that I own a BlackBerry.
there are many things you could name:
compatibility with more than a hand full of hardware
really good support for developpers
gigs of free and opensource software
extensibility
hand-writing recognition
Look, we've seen it plenty of times before... If you want to deliver a good product, you need to design both the hardware and the software (we all know who I'm talking about). Windows Mobile is hit or miss depending on the phone.
RIM's got it nailed. The last thing we want or need -- as average consumers, business people, and just plain people who want reliable, user-friendly smart phones -- is a Microsoft OS on a BlackBerry.
-Updated:
Leaked internal Microsoft documents point to a new project, code named Rim-job.
More like" Rimming-Steve Jobs"
rofl
i see a zuneberry phone in the near future
... and now i own the domain
It should just forward to this engadget story.
Microsoft touching the BB... iPhone won't even have to compete, just watch the competition decompose...
But say, in a few years, apple crumbles like every company, what will you fanbois fanboi next?
nyop,
I'd put my money on New Balance tennis shoes. Probably the velcro kind.
@noyp
the fanbois won't have to worry about Apple crumbling. Microsoft will just bail them out...again. Ofcourse iEye probably doesn't remember that happening, he too young to remember that.
NO!... NO!.... NO!... I've been running away from WINMO for years.... they ruined Palm's Treo w/ 700W and now THIS!
Blackberry OS is the SH*T.... What next? Nokia/Symbian?
Microsoft, above all else, knows how to read the market and make good business decisions. Blackberry OS has a (slightly) larger marketshare than WinMo. It would be incredibly stupid for them to kill it and they know that. They don't let their ego get in the way of profit.
If this goes down, expect WinMo to get Blackberry server support and Blackberry OS to get native Windows desktop support. I wouldn't expect a whole lot else to change.
Doesn't anyone remember when Treo's went for 400, with a contract and 600 without!?
Now they give'm away when you apply for a Visa card! Their shares are still suffering (from $20-30 to $5). WINMO destroyed PALM and they'll do the same to BB.
But I'm sure it's just another rumor.
What does that have to do with anything? Palm wasn't bought by Microsoft, they simply licensed Windows Mobile because PalmOS was no longer holding up in the corporate world and they needed something to keep them afloat while they work on their endlessly delayed Linux OS.
This is a totally different situation. Do you really think that Microsoft wants to buy RIM just so they can self-produce a line of WinMo phones (which they could easily do without buying anybody)? Of course not, they want to buy RIM so they can collect the profits from Blackberry.
My finance sucks, so excuse me if this seems like an odd question. Why would the analyst think they'd offer $50 if it's valued at $60? Wouldn't ppl sell at value or higher?
I'm guessing that MS is putting that out there betting that with the market as it is since if the market continues to fall, RIMs stock will soon be worth LESS than $50/share. So it's an early out for RIM. Not to mention ... it may end up less than $50/share AFTER a MS acquisition. Either way it's a gamble for both companies but one which MS can afford to make. They are betting that RIM CAN'T afford to continue letting their stock fall.
It's a standing offer apparently, so if the stock drops to 40, then MS will say, and now we'll buy for 50.... I believe $50/share is where MSFT has realized it will be beneficial to buy. kind of their highest pay point that they think it's worth it
Ok makes sense.
Follow up: why can't RIM afford to let its stock drop so much, are people really going to stop buying Blackberries? It's not like larger organizations or the govt, who can weather this storm, will stop using it will they?
@Mike - Low stock prices mean less equity that RIM can borrow against. Less money available means slower growth, higher interest on debts, etc, and that will be risky during a border-line recession where sales will inevitably slow.
At least, that's how I understand it at a basic level.
I typically though companies grew on their profits from past ventures. Is that not the case?
BTW this is a nice economics lesson for me.
RIM will be under $50 next week. which sucks big floppy donkey dick because I bought it at 135.
@CraigJ...well then, you sir, are a moron.
RIM isn't Google and they aren't revolutionizing their industry....buying that high could never be a good idea.
Companies use money from past ventures to grow; but more often they grow using a business loan (they take on debt in order to expand). This is advantageous for several more-or-less complicated reasons. One reason is that they pay less income tax, since interest is deducted from their income before tax is assessed. Another reason is that saving up cash reserves is risky for a large company, since another company who's pondering a takeover can use their target's cash reserves as collateral for a loan to take over the target (they go to a bank and say "Hey, loan me $500 million dollars so I can take XYZ Corp over; they have $600 million in cash reserves so it's completely riskless and I'll pay you back as soon as the deal is done"). In contrast, taking on debt makes you a less attractive takeover target - not only will the pirates have to buy you out, but they'll have to pay off your debts. Adds to the total bill.
A company like MSFT would consider RIM and decide that the max they'll pay is $50 based on how much they value the company's assets and brand. A RIM shareholder might value the company very differently, say $135 per share, because based on the information he had at the time, it looked like that's what the company was worth.
I do not like this idea. Now unless they were to buy out RIM and allow it to run as a separate company (HIGHLY don't think so!), then maybe. If they were thinking of merging the OS, like adopting a few features while the other OS remains dominant, I would prefer to see how that turns out in a trial beforehand and which would become dominant. But this is bad.
Let's say Microsoft did buy RIM, would they have Blackberry's run Windows Mobile and just toss RIM's OS out? That would suck considering how much they've worked on it. It's looking really good right now, and I say if MS does buy, then just integrate both services, and if your gonna toss RIM's OS, atleast use the stellar email and enterprise capabilities the Blackberry offers.