[FSeverino]

time to buy stock?

[Brianflys]

The pause is appreciated, but if you really want to draw a comparison here you'd be better off finding an earnings report in which Apple reported a $485 million writedown on the iPod than suggesting that any moment now the PlayBook will become a hit. As for launching into a brutal environment, RIM chose to build the product and chose its release timing, so it's not as though RIM ended up in the spot it's in via lottery.

I will stipulate to the fact that the PlayBook release was RIM's doing. But there is much yet to be written about this device. There has been a major sea change at RIM, and their focus has changed from chasing apple and android to focus on their core hardware and system strength in the corporate environment. This is where commercial oriented devices like PlayBook will be competitive as part of the corporate solutions.

[Muttypint]

Office on BB 10? Yes Please.

BBM on Windows Phone? Yes Please.

Office on BB 10? Yes Please.

BBM on Windows Phone? NO Please.

[Mikey_T]

Office on BB 10? Yes Please.

BBM on Windows Phone? NO Please.

Really? I'd like to see at least a basic-functionality version of BBM on all platforms, so I can use it to chat with all my contacts instead of having to use SMS for some, Whatsapp for others, etc.

One school of thought says that licensing BBM to other platforms would be the end of Blackberry but I've never really believed that; if BBM is the only draw to the platform we've got bigger problems; and $3.5B would more than cover any potential short-term profit loss while BB10 builds interest with consumers on it's own merit.

BBM on all phones? Yes please !

[Shlooky]

I think the $3 billion investment in RIM (if true) is more than just software development, it maybe to purchase portions of RIM, either the hardware business or license the BB10 with full integration into Windows Phone 7.

Either way, I'm concerned...Nokia is still loosing money despite them selling 2 million phones.

[sam_b77]

One of the things Steve Jobs did when he trying to re-vitalize Apple back in the late 90's was make a deal with the Microsoft devil. Maybe there's something magical in MS bucks

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Microsoft devil? From what I've seen of Apple on their second wind, it's Apple who seems to be the monopolistic devil. They have gone from being the special underdog to the devil incarnate whose special power is patent trolling. I bought my macbook because I wanted something different and non institutionalised. Now I would take Windows.I even have my Macbook running Windows and that's what I use most of the time. Windows good....Apple devil....
Fact is Apple couldn't handle success and they turned into the very thing the rebelled against. I guess it's easy to be a rebel when you are not making a profit and have nothing to lose. But when you are profitable you start operating with business fundamentals which means Apple is no longer special.

[the_sleuth]

Ignoring the Apple conspiracy, there's enough hate. IF Microsoft invests in RIM, it's to have Windows OS on BB. $3.5 investment would be to kill BB OS 10.

[Economist101]

Microsoft devil? From what I've seen of Apple on their second wind, it's Apple who seems to be the monopolistic devil. They have gone from being the special underdog to the devil incarnate whose special power is patent trolling.

Feel free to offer your definition of "patent troll," as the general one below doesn't seem to fit.

Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company who buys and enforces patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention.

[MartyMcfly]

Microsoft devil? From what I've seen of Apple on their second wind, it's Apple who seems to be the monopolistic devil. They have gone from being the special underdog to the devil incarnate whose special power is patent trolling. I bought my macbook because I wanted something different and non institutionalised. Now I would take Windows.I even have my Macbook running Windows and that's what I use most of the time. Windows good....Apple devil....
Fact is Apple couldn't handle success and they turned into the very thing the rebelled against. I guess it's easy to be a rebel when you are not making a profit and have nothing to lose. But when you are profitable you start operating with business fundamentals which means Apple is no longer special.

lol, you sound like a scorned lover....I can make the same exact argument regarding RIMM and the way they handled success (ignoring innovation(C) iphone, and expecting their loyal customers to purchase their horrible products (c) storm)...

[YorkieRay]

A Microsoft/RIM alliance makes good sense to me.
I think that a dominant position for both in the consumer mobile market is lost now, but there is still a lot to play for in business markets. For every day of my working life for the past 20 years I have been using Microsoft products. Love them or loathe them, they are still dominant on the desktop. On mobiles though, I fully expected their Windows phone with Office apps and intregretion to MS Server networks to be a real challenge to BlackBerry, but that never happened for them. As the mobile and tablet business market grows, Microsoft lacks a presence there and that could also impact on the rest of their business. RIM is also highly respected in the corporate world and their systems can be fully trusted, though they also cannot afford any further erosion in their corporate business.

[app_Developer]

Doesnt the term "patent troll" generally refer to companies who buy, trade, and litigate patents without actually doing any product development of their own? Patents trolls' primary business is patents. Apple's primary business is selling tens of millions of iPhones and iPads.

I find it interesting that Microsoft is now the sympathetic underdog, having not changed any of its own behavior. Strange.

[CairnsRock]

MS desperately want into the phone market and need to get into the tablet OS business.

Desktops lost to laptops, which are now loosing to tablets, So MS need to leap frog bigtime into two new markets where they have little to no presence. They see a nice new QNX OS for both phones and tablets.

Mmmmmmm! Yum, yum.

[Mikey_T]

I find it interesting that Microsoft is now the sympathetic underdog, having not changed any of its own behavior. Strange.

I find it interesting that people have a need to anthropomorphise these corporations and asign them personalities which they then use to weigh and justify their tech choices. Strange.

[Economist101]

lol, you sound like a scorned lover....

Scorned user, my friend.

[app_Developer]

They see a nice new QNX OS for both phones and tablets.

Microsoft experimented with microkernels and RTOS'es just like everyone else did 20-30 years ago. They know full well how to separate marketing hype from actual engineering.

Any further deals they make in this space, like the Nokia deal, will be to push their own OS (which is already very, very good)

[Economist101]

They see a nice new QNX OS for both phones and tablets.

An OS that isn't selling isn't exactly a hard thing to find.

[MartyMcfly]

Scorned user, my friend.

Lol, that's true, my bad.


Sent from my IPhone 4s using Tapatalk

[purijagmohan]

Ignoring the Apple conspiracy, there's enough hate. IF Microsoft invests in RIM, it's to have Windows OS on BB. $3.5 investment would be to kill BB OS 10.

Wonder how such a great post goes unnoticed.It's a radical thought but not out of realms of possibility.

Definitely RIM won't give up on BB10 for Cars and other embedded devices.That's for sure.They also mayn't give up BB10 for enterprise.

But how about splitting the business in two verticals, Enterprise and Consumer.

Enterprise Department retains BB 10.
Consumer Department adopts Windows Phone OS.

Both get to share NOC.NOC access means RIM gets Service fees both from Consumer and Enterprise.

Samsung currently builds hardware for three OS. Bada, Android and Windows phone.It may even build for BB10 if rumors are true.

Looks like lots of permutations and Combinations possible and , end result is Android and IOS have to get ready for a stronger third alliance.

[lnichols]

Why does RIM need an investment period? The 2 billion in the bank should be plenty to last till BB10. Not like they are hemorraging money like Nokia is right now. Also why would MS invest and not just wait for things to get worse and buy cheap? They already have a foot in the door of Nokia and they are heading to the grave quicker than RIM.

[grahamf]

I'm thinking Microsoft wants access to RIM's software portfolio, primarily QNX.

With Windows 8 and metro, Microsoft has split their ecosystem in half: current and legacy. Metro application are sandboxed and so not linked to the OS underpinnings.

This means Microsoft could build an entirely new OS from QNX, with Metro support and a "7 mode" to run legacy applications.

[swyost]

I'm thinking Microsoft wants access to RIM's software portfolio, primarily QNX.

With Windows 8 and metro, Microsoft has split their ecosystem in half: current and legacy. Metro application are sandboxed and so not linked to the OS underpinnings.

This means Microsoft could build an entirely new OS from QNX, with Metro support and a "7 mode" to run legacy applications.

If Microsoft had wanted QNX, they could have bought it with their version of spare change a few years ago. People around here really overestimate what the rest of the industry thinks of that platform. Microsoft has also not split its ecosystem in half. The reality is quite the contrary in that they are unifying experience across all versions of its ecosystem(s). Even the new versions of its server OS will share common elements with the Windows 8 desktop, tablet, and phone experience.

Windows on ARM offers only limited legacy support, but why would they possibly want to start over from scratch three years into the project with something that would offer no legacy support and a different user experience? That is precisely why Bill Gates stepped in a couple years back and used his influence (so to speak) to kill the Courier project. Although Apple obviously got the jump, Microsoft and Apple have been playing the long game all along. RIM, HP/Palm, and Google have been doing the turn on a dime, reaction oriented, "du jour" approach to technology and OS. Google has been successful at it so far but more due to size and momentum than actual individual product success; RIM and HP obviously have not be quite as successfull. If Microsoft was to invest a lot of money in RIM, it would either be part of a quiet acquisition whereby it is a couple years before they are officially bought, or to get access to RIM's secure network infrastructure and some key patented technology. It would not be to adopt QNX. Microsoft has every major computer and tablet manufacturer with the obvious exception of Apple, and all of the key chip manufacturers, lined up for Windows 8. Many of these companies already have fully designed ARM and Wintel tablet devices, and x86 based desktop/laptop systems, in the pipeline waiting for Windows 8 to go final late this summer.

[BBNation]

agree 100% with swyost, MS won't mess with 1000s of OEM vendors that supports MS native os.

[grahamf]

Holy wall of text, Batman!

If Microsoft had wanted QNX, they could have bought it with their version of spare change a few years ago. People around here really overestimate what the rest of the industry thinks of that platform. Microsoft has also not split its ecosystem in half. The reality is quite the contrary in that they are unifying experience across all versions of its ecosystem(s). Even the new versions of its server OS will share common elements with the Windows 8 desktop, tablet, and phone experience.

Yes, when you look at it that way. But you can't run Photoshop on your Xbox, nor can you install your printer drivers on your phone. When I said Microsoft split it's ecosystem in half, I mean between the Old and the New. Windows 8 on x86 is basically Windows 7 with a new start menu and application APIs, but Windows 8 on ARM is ONLY metro, except for a stunted legacy environment that won't run third-party applications. Everything written for Windows will be obsolete when Windows 8 comes out. And when things become written for Metro, these things will be in an environment where the core OS is irrelevant, making Microsoft free to change up things, and swap out the kernel for something better.

Windows on ARM offers only limited legacy support, but why would they possibly want to start over from scratch three years into the project with something that would offer no legacy support and a different user experience? That is precisely why Bill Gates stepped in a couple years back and used his influence (so to speak) to kill the Courier project. Although Apple obviously got the jump, Microsoft and Apple have been playing the long game all along. RIM, HP/Palm, and Google have been doing the turn on a dime, reaction oriented, "du jour" approach to technology and OS. Google has been successful at it so far but more due to size and momentum than actual individual product success; RIM and HP obviously have not be quite as successfull. If Microsoft was to invest a lot of money in RIM, it would either be part of a quiet acquisition whereby it is a couple years before they are officially bought, or to get access to RIM's secure network infrastructure and some key patented technology. It would not be to adopt QNX. Microsoft has every major computer and tablet manufacturer with the obvious exception of Apple, and all of the key chip manufacturers, lined up for Windows 8. Many of these companies already have fully designed ARM and Wintel tablet devices, and x86 based desktop/laptop systems, in the pipeline waiting for Windows 8 to go final late this summer.

In case you haven't noticed, the computer industry is changing. Tablets and smartphones are eating away desktop and laptop marketshare, and Microsoft knows they have to change before they become obsolete. And actually Microsoft has done this before. Remember DOS? DOS was the heyday of it's time, but when Apple came out with the user-friendly Macintosh OS, Microsoft responded with Windows. Windows was originally still built on DOS and allowed you to boot into DOS mode to run all of your applications, but then when XP came out the DOS underpinnings was replaced with NT. NT is the underpinnings of XP, Vista, 7, and 8. It may also be in 9, but I'm doubtful as to it's life after that. NT is superior to DOS, but it is bogged down by legacy code and history, which Windows has to shed to remain competitive in a market where what the definition of the computer is being rewritten, again.

And as for killing Courier, as you sure that was such a good idea? Yes, at the time the idea of not being backwards compatibility was considered very bad, but now things are changing, and Microsoft has to change too. I don't think Courier was bad, simply that it was a bit before it's time and did not have a transition path.

[VanCity778]

A merger with RIM and Microsoft make the most sense. Or some sort of alliance would be best for both parties.

[purijagmohan]

Holy wall of text, Batman!

Yes, when you look at it that way. But you can't run Photoshop on your Xbox, nor can you install your printer drivers on your phone. When I said Microsoft split it's ecosystem in half, I mean between the Old and the New. Windows 8 on x86 is basically Windows 7 with a new start menu and application APIs, but Windows 8 on ARM is ONLY metro, except for a stunted legacy environment that won't run third-party applications. Everything written for Windows will be obsolete when Windows 8 comes out. And when things become written for Metro, these things will be in an environment where the core OS is irrelevant, making Microsoft free to change up things, and swap out the kernel for something better.

Thanks.Very interesting comment.I fail to understand MSFT gameplan here.They have Windows 8 on X86, which bascially brings desktop OS to Tablets.

So what purpose does it serve to bring out Windows 8 on ARM since X86 apps would not be compatible for ARM.Which basically means Windows is starting at level zero, in fact I could argue it's even behind BB10 since BB10 has 20000 apps.

What's the reason for Windows 8 on ARM? A new unified OS that will power both Smartphone and Tablets.Can we see a merger of Windows Phone and Windows 8 on ARM at some point??

If answer is yes, Windows is in same serious S**t as BB 10 isn't it.So coming together of these two big guns would make plenty of sense?? But question is coming together on BB10 or coming together on Windows 8??