“RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others”, analyst says

BASIS International hit RIM with a trademark infringement lawsuit over the use of term “BBX”. RIM started using BBX to describe the new BlackBerry smartphone OS, but to avoid a massive issue they quickly shifted its name to “BlackBerry 10”. According to Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-CEO, these new devices will apparently “leap frog” the competition when they are released… but we can now expect them sometime during “the latter part of 2012“. The five rumoured “BlackBerry 10” devices to be launched in 2012 is the London, Lisbon, Milan, Nevada, and Black Forest.

So until RIM gets their stuff in order, here’s a fresh, new rumour to ponder. Peter Misek, analyst from Jefferies & Co., stated in a note to his clients that he believes RIM has, or will, start to licence the BlackBerry 10 OS to other manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC. No other details are given, but personally I cannot see either of these companies licensing another OS. Both of them are deeply involved with Google’s Android OS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS. In addition, Samsung has their own bada OS (which isn’t widely adopted), and HTC has reportedly pondered creating or buying a mobile OS. Just like the note to his clients states, if RIM goes in this direction it will put pressure on their hardware business, but increase the service revenue.

“We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others. This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets).”

Thoughts?

Source: Barrons