Research In Motion’s plunging stock price has made the subject of predictions that it might get bought out by a competitor or someone looking to acquire its patents. According to a report by Reuters, Amazon and other buyers looked into acquiring the Canadian company this past summer but no formal offers were made.
While informal talks may have taken place, RIM is still looking to go at it alone. Two sources report that the company’s board wants co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie to focus on getting the company back on track by launching new devices, making better use of its assets (including BlackBerry Messaging) and restructuring. “Selling the company or an economic joint venture is probably not in the cards right now,” said one source. “Until you stabilize the platform, people are going to be very nervous about spending $10 billion or more.”
The report adds that investment bankers have looked at selling RIM to other manufacturers, including HTC and Samsung. Those discussions did not anywhere either as both companies apparently saw little value in such a purchase.
With RIM expecting another tough year in 2012 (especially with further delays for its BlackBerry 10 devices), I suspect that rumours of companies looking to acquire RIM are not about to go away.