Research In Motion (RIM) is moving in the wrong direction. The maker of the BlackBerry (and the new tablet, the Playbook) has seen its stock slide from the mid-$50s range in April to $28 on Wednesday, with the biggest plunge seemingly triggered by a "particularly ugly" quarterly earnings report late last week. The tanking stock has sparked renewed speculation that a company with a healthy bankroll — say, Microsoft — could swoop in and buy the beleaguered smartphone maker. Would that be a positive step?
Yes. It "would make plenty of sense": Buying RIM at these "bargain-basement prices" would help Microsoft "immediately become a much larger mobile player," says Preston Gralla at ComputerWorld. Microsoft could then offer BlackBerries for business customers, and Windows phones for consumers. That would mean abandoning the "Windows everywhere" strategy that Microsoft "seems wedded to," but it would be "the quickest way" for Microsoft "to finally become a big player" in the smartphone world.
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