News has been creeping around that Korean giant Samsung is planning to buy RIM, or rightly a part of RIM in the near future. A source had earlier claimed that RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie was meeting with companies interested in either licensing its software or buying a part or all of RIM and the first vendor in line is Samsung.
Giving various reasons like BBM integration into its various ecosystems (Android, bada, Windows Phone) and also enterprise integration, assumptions have been made that RIM might be taken over by Samsung.
This seems pretty weird. Why would a vendor which is leading the smartphone market in the world running 3 different platforms be interested in a vendor which is going down pretty bad? Agreed, the enterprise and BBM services are RIM’s biggest assets, but is that or should that be the only reason?
In any case, Reuters have confirmed that in a statement a Samsung spokesman said that the company is not interested in buying out Research In Motion.
“We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM),” Samsung spokesman James Chung said.
“There’s no merit (in Samsung buying RIM). An acquisition would enable Samsung to have its own operating system but the cost is too high. Samsung didn’t buy HP’s webOS either for the same reason… BlackBerry sales are collapsing and one plus one will not become two.” said Lee Sun-tae, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities.
Right you are, Mr. Lee.