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Rumour: RIM looking to sell entire company to Samsung? [Update]
Over the past couple weeks various reports surfaced that Waterloo-based RIM was thinking about licensing their BlackBerry 10 OS to companies such as Samsung or HTC. RIM, and others, declined to comment on the rumour… but here’s another one to add to the mix. Over at BGR, trusted sources say that RIM is leaning towards selling a specific part of the business, or even the entire company, with the hopes of scooping up between $12 billion to $15 billion. Apparently RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie “is going hard after Samsung”. No other details are given, but the possible reasons Samsung is interested in RIM is because of their BlackBerry Messenger service and various enterprise features. Not mentioned in the report is the patents that RIM holds, specifically Nortel. Personally, I can’t see it happening, but hey, mobile is a crazy space these days and you never know.
If Samsung dished out $12 billion for RIM, they would take the 75 million BlackBerry users and rise way above Nokia and become the number 1 mobile manufacturer in the world. What do you think… will Samsung gobble up RIM?
Update: A new report from Reuters says that Samsung is not interested in purchasing RIM. Samsung spokesman James Chung said “We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM)”. RIM’s stock increased just over 8% on the news today, but unfortunately after hours trading is down over 3%.
Source: BGR
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53 comments for “Rumour: RIM looking to sell entire company to Samsung? [Update]”
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Android’s superfast innovation augmented by BBM and RIM’s servers? Scary.
It would be bad from a Canadian mobile industry perspective, but it’d be GREAT for Samsung. They could keep a few BB’s around for business users and put all of the best functions into their Android phones too.
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NOW THE NEW BLACKBERRY WILL HAVE ICS 4.0 !!!!!!!
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Patents are cheaper in Chapter 7, Samsung. Just in case nobody told you.
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In case nobody told YOU, you can’t buy things from Chapter 7 when the company still seems to think it has a shot of pulling through. If bankruptcy was a certainty of course they’d be cheaper to buy, but it isn’t.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Patents.
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This would be up there with HP buying Palm in the bone headed tech moves of the year. Samsung is growing year by year and is doign well with Android. BlackBerry is a dying breed run by an old boy’s club which is slipping more and more quikcly into obscurity.
This would be a really bad move on Samsung’s part in my opinion. Stay the course and don’t latch onto RIM. What do they expect they’ll get if they buy them aside from a userbase? I certainly hope they don’t expect to make anything out of the operating system unless QNX is the second coming. The Sammy Tablets blow the Playbook out of the water too so it certainly can’t be for those.
This came from BGR anyway. BGR’s “trusted sources” are usually nonsense and way off
–>Purchasing a company does not always mean the want the product, its usually more for the patents and technologies, BB is great for BBM and Security technologies
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Samsung is already developing its own mobile OS under pressure from teh South Korean government. This would give them the solution they are looking for and end their dependence on Android if they desired too. Samsung’s design sense and money could really make “Samberries” something to look at.
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^ word
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@Brian
What r u talking about? Don’t make random claims.
WebOS was and still is a solid OS, it was HP that messed it up for itself. So HP buying Palm was a good move for HP.
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@Dan
Samsung already has that. It’s called Bada. And like its namesake, it’s really really bada.
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This would be a very dramatic turn of events!
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This would get Samsung the differenciation they want, and a business department that would be second to no-one.
Holy /ohthatcannotbesaid/.
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I thought Jim Balsillie was going to be ousted by the RIM Board of Directors?
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take what bgr says with a grain of salt. they are most of the time creating their own rumors to generate traffic. they have rumored many things and are always wrong.
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Someone’s trying to make some money on RIM’s stock fluctuations by generating rumors
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“BGR” should change its name to “BS Report”
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BGR=Bullshit Gadget Rumors
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As a blackberry fan this sure is exciting news! Do it RIM!!! For the sake of the company!!
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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I’ve heard a rumour that Tim Horton’s was going to by RIM so that they could see phones in every coffee shop. I’ll alert BGR.
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The mood here at RIM headquarters is very grim. Most of us are scared and unsure of what lies ahead. We are trying to find strength by sticking together and setting up a support network. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
All we can do is hope for the best and try to stay focused on the task at hand. Any day could be our last.
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With that portfolio of patents it would give them leverage over Apple and might be able to sue them for a change. /sarcasm
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Steep price but would get Samsung into Enterprise. And position other Samsung products into Corporate such as AV laptops printers tablets etc.
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Dont know why RIM would sell to Samsung. If they are really that desperate they could just adopt Android themselves and differentiate themselves with BBM. Who would want Android when they could have Android + BBM?
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I have to admit I kinda like that idea. I mean Samsung adds TouchWiz and HTC adds HTC Sense to their Android phones. An Android with a Blackberry user interface is quite interesting a thought. But the part I like the best is that the company would still remain Canadian instead of becoming South Korean (not that there’s anything wrong with South Korea, but I’m Canadian so I still want Blackberry to be a home team)
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If it means i’ll have bbm on my galaxy nexus, i’m all for it.
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Would be interesting how this will pan out.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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It could be a valid rumor. What I would see happening though is Samsung would eliminate the BB hardware divisions. Why would you duplicate the effort. Compared to what Samsung can offer for hardware RIM is too far behind.
Then they get BBM and the business software working with Samsung hardware. RIM was already working on that anyway for other smartphones.
That and add 75 million+ existing users and patents might give Samsung enough thought to consider it anyway.
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Why do you need to put “Waterloo Based” Rim everytime. I think we know where Rim is located by now.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Why do people keep saying the BB servers are terrible; it wasn’t even the servers that were the problem for the outage it was switches; most likely cisco switches, and hey does that mean cisco hardware is bad? NO! It just means that some failed; it happens its not uncommon in the IT industry
I hope that RIM doesn’t sell, in all fairness lately their product is growing; and I would prefer to see three or even four competitors then just having two. I like being able to have choice in which company I go with; if theres only two companies than customer service always ends up hitting the toilet.
Hopefully this is just another BGR rumor to drive up the stocks so some smuck who bought some shares at $13.00 can make a killing off the stock rising.
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The servers are bad because everything you do on a blackberry has to pass trough RIM’s server.
We don’t care if it’s the computer or the switch that failed. What we care is that it’s a really bad design to have a centralized infrastructure like this and that it did fail.
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I think This would be a very wise move for Samsung as it would strengthen their already top not lineup of devices. Also, the inclusion of bbm on android would be a tough blow to apple as the main reason most people live their Blackberries is because of BBM.
The increase in users that Samsung would get would also help continue growth of the android platform and make it the platform of choice for most developers.
I love rim but unless their Os 10 devices but would love BBM on android even more.
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I’d prefer to see Microsoft/Nokia pick up RIM.
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If RIM is even considering to sell itself off, then I think it should be Google knocking on their door to get the chance.
Not only they would get the much needed patents, but they would also get the chance to integrate BBM with Google hangout/messenger. I don’t think it makes too much sense for Samsung to go after them really. I think it’s Android itself that would make the most sense if someone’s buying RIM, and Samsung buying RIM doesn’t help Android. It should be Google.
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I heard that Bruce Wayne bought over RIM, two days ago. In order to amplify BAT BERRY MESSENGER aka BBM.
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bbm on my galaxy nexus then please! If its true, i expect BBM included in ICS 4.0.4
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Nice, as a Canadian I feel sad but as technophile I take this as a great news, RIM and it’s model was meant to die as it’s apple in the future, chances of BBM to survive are numbered to days now, Samsung is looking at the email service rt about now and I highly doubt they will pay a billion for RIM.
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Customers would get a reliable upgrade path and would be able to maintain their current investment. Moving to another enterprise mobile service (Apple based?) is a major blunder.
Having secure messaging and an open dev platform like android makes the path viable.
The RIM handset/ hardware offerings bring zip to the deal and sammysung can offer great deals to get employees off iPhones.
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Who were the insiders who spiked the stock on Tuesday at 10am? Boy genius? Goldman Sachs?
RIM will be pwned, the question is when. Share value will rise a bit more to book value. That’s it. RIM’s only value are its patents and bbm. The handsets are worth nothing and QNX, while technically brilliant, won’t be embraced by the mass market.
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Since it’s coming from BGR, don’t expect any truth in this story. They are known to raise anti-RIM rumours and probably are trying to make a quick buck on it’s stock.
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RIM crashed in after hours trading this evening so I hope y’all got out by 4pm.
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BGR should be investigated for possible stock manipulation. Samsung just released a statement saying they have no such interest in RIM.
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BGR should just shut down & not even bother anymore. The more fake / lies they pull to get population is funny. They need to stop lying about this crap. They believe anyone they find.
It’s been updated that Samsung said they are not interested in buying RIM so BGR needs to shut their mouths.
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samsung confirmed they have no interest in acquiring rim. its amazing the amount of people that will buy based on hype.
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at this stage, I think RIM executives have more reasons to make a profit and recover their shares, vs selling the stocks at rock bottom prices.
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Why buy garbage?
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what would be awesome is that google looks into acquiring the email set up and bbm. emails are the easiest thing with blackberry’s, and get bbm to the android platform, they would kill the market. the bbm addicts would be able to get their fix, plus get a better phone. so you have business people for emails and bbm, the addicts, and the android fans to top it off. google could leap jump the market in sales. but it is all wishful thinking, and at this point we will see blackberry selling their services and they will be a minor fraction of what they used to be. i wonder with the way they are going if they will last the end of 2013.
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Figures…like another poster said…why buy garbage.
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RIM will inevitably crash … time to jump ship and join Samsung, especially if I can BBM from my Nexus
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