By Last week, Lenovo CFO Wong Wai Meng gave the world reason to believe that the Chinese manufacturer might be interested in trying to acquire RIM. It was reported that RIM would look at all possible routes in the future, even if that meant making a bid for RIM. Lenovo looked to douse that fire rather quickly as the company noted the CFO was simply responding to an interviewer’s question specifically about RIM.
Still, that doesn’t mean Lenovo isn’t at least thinking about it. It sounds as if Lenovo simply doesn’t want to give the wrong impression and imply that RIM is up for sale, but the CFO’s comments suggest that his company would definitely be interested if that were the case. RIM has been rumored to be shaking its business model up for quite some time.
With market share steadily slipping away and innovation coming to Android, Windows Phone and iOS faster than RIM can blink you would think that some sort of dramatic shake-up is definitely in the cards. Everything, from a sale of the company’s hardware division to a full-on sale, could happen if Blackberry 10 fails to capture the interests of the tech world.
RIM has stayed afloat this long amid a very poor fiscal Q3 2013, where it was revealed that the OEM and software vendor lost $114 million. This blow wasn’t big enough to sink the ship, but being on the wrong side of the black is a trend that you definitely want to break before too long. RIM might be in a lot more trouble if not for Blackberry being an enterprise mainstay, but with offerings from Android, iOS and Windows Phone becoming good enough for the business world you have to wonder how long it can hold on to the glory days.
Lenovo hasn’t shown a particular interest in becoming a more global brand in terms of smartphones, but with a purchase of RIM it could find itself in very favorable position to start such a transition. As with anything of this nature, though, only time will tell if any of this has a legit shot at going down.
[via The Next Web]
Lenovo (see: Chinese government) purchase of RIM could expose A LOT of telecom contracts around the world for the Chinese. Even as RIM spirals into nonexistence, tons of corporations and government agencies around the world still use Blackberry as a backbone for their mobile communications needs. I could see a lot of resistance to this deal from most western governments, as there should be. No this isn’t xfiles or some bs conspiracy. It’s real.
I agree. Most of the government workers who have a Blackberry work with some sort of security clearance, or at a facility that has security clearances because they build weapons or aircraft. They would not won’t the Chinese privy to that.
They are toast. Rim is the only manufacturer of Blackberries competing against multiple manufacturers of Android and Windows phones and Apple and it is over.
Who’s is this Rim?
If Blackberry would have adopted android and just added their signature security and features they would be more relevant than LG and HTC today. Now I think it’s too late to capitalize on their services that have been forgotten or replaced.
Chinese companies have shown so much interest in acquiring many Canadian businesses recently, that I wasn’t a tiny bit surprised by the last weeks title. I didn’t even read the article – so truthfully the title sounded.
Such deals never get published before they actually happen, and I still believe it will happen. CFO who spilled the beans might get fired though.