UPDATE: Samsung came out and said that they never considered acquiring RIM nor had any interest.
While Android and iPhone continue to do incredibly well, RIM has had some issues with growing their BlackBerry line of smartphones. A new report surfaced that Samsung may be interesting in acquiring the company. This announcement led to stock jumping nearly 10 percent.
Via Washington Post:
“An acquisition of RIM, whose stock fell 75 percent last year amid market-share losses, would give Samsung an operating system that would help it differentiate from competition as it seeks to stay ahead of Apple Inc. Samsung now makes phones based on Google Inc.’s Android software and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone, operating systems also used by rivals such as HTC Corp.”
As with any report, it’s not 100% fact and the sources, well, they weren’t identified by Boy Genius Report, the tech blog that originally announced the possible acquisition. The possibility is there and would be interesting to see what Samsung would do with the BlackBerry OS and line of smartphones and more recently, the PlayBook tablet.
RIM needs to make something happen this year as they’ve continued to decline. This acquisition could help with that, that is of course if they’re even willing to sell. If it doesn’t go down, that means they could potentially license out their OS and technology to Samsung .
“The company’s share of U.S. mobile-phone subscribers in the three months through November dropped to 6.5 percent from 7.1 percent in the previous quarter, according to research firm ComScore Inc. Samsung, based in Suwon, South Korea, increased to 25.6 percent from 25.3 percent, and Apple gained 1.4 percentage point to 11.2 percent.”
Do you own a BlackBerry and if not, would you consider buying one?
