[xsacha]

It's clear RIM doesn't want to reinvent anything and would rather spend its reserves now to ensure a healthy future by buying and licencing the best in current technology.

Licensed Flash source code: SwiftKey
Licensed their camera: Scalado Rewind
Licensed their media streaming service: Twonky
Licensed their HD Traffic service: TomTom
Licensed their video store: Rovi
Freely use their graphical toolkit: Qt
Bought Cascades graphical toolkit (based on Qt): TAT
Developed their own game development toolkit: GamePlay
Bought their web browser: Torch Mobile
Bought their social calendar: Tungle.Me
Bought their social contacts: Gist
Bought their WebWorks tools: Tiny Hippos Ripple Emulator
Bought their RSS Reader: Viigo
Bought their Mobile Fusion: Ubitexx
Bought their game scoreboard system: ScoreLoop
Bought their AppWorld: Cellmania
Bought their video editor: JayCut
Bought their mobile cloud: Newbay
Bought their 3G/LTE stack: M-Stack
Bought their cryptography: Certicom
Bought their office suite: DataViz Documents To Go
Bought the operating system: QNX

Any I missed?

Edit: Updated page, thanks for sending these in I didn't know about

[Bla1ze]

Video Store licensed from: Rovi

[greatwiseone]

Torch Mobile - Webkit browser
Tungle - Calendar
Gist - Contacts
TinyHippos - Ripple simulator for web works
Ubitexx - mobile fusion
Viigo - Blackberry News (maybe)

[greatwiseone]

Cellmania - "Improved" App World

[berrybait]

I would say that they don't want to reinvent anything that they don't need to. This is something that most companies need to do in order to keep pace in a persistently changing market. Even Apple and Google do this. Do you realize how many companies they buy every year? No one says that they don't want to reinvent anymore.

[playbookster]

Research in Buying

[morlock_man]

Is this just for software or are hardware innovations up too?

They bought Paratek back in March. It's quite likely their voltage tunable thin film tech, Parascan, will be incorporated into any LTE offerings.

[xsacha]

This is their software/technologies in Playbook (BB10) OS.

I agree that other companies (especially Google and Apple) do this. Google and Apple also have a lot more cash to throw around. RIM is quite small in comparison and seems to be doing similar amount of acquisitions as those guys which is pretty astounding.

RIM only have 6bn market cap compared to the 200bn and 500bn of Google/Apple.

I'd also like to mention that RIM seems to have more in-depth partnerships with companies it licences from (eg. Adobe, SwiftKey, Scalado) where it has a lot of input on the integration and in some cases source code access.

[SifJar]

Is the current PlayBook keyboard made by SwiftKey or is that talking the BB10 one? I have always liked the current keyboard, and thought it's predictions were always good - I have heard SwiftKey on Android also has good predictions, so I'm now curious if they are based on the same code or if that is a future improvement that is yet to come?

[willwnet]

What do they use Twonky for?

Could also add 7Digital, powering the Music Store on PB and BlackBerry.

[anon(3870164)]

Is the current PlayBook keyboard made by SwiftKey or is that talking the BB10 one? I have always liked the current keyboard, and thought it's predictions were always good - I have heard SwiftKey on Android also has good predictions, so I'm now curious if they are based on the same code or if that is a future improvement that is yet to come?

Most probably, related to SwiftKey, especially the predictions. Source here http://crackberry.com/blackberry-pla...ftkey-keyboard

[willwnet]

Is the current PlayBook keyboard made by SwiftKey or is that talking the BB10 one? I have always liked the current keyboard, and thought it's predictions were always good - I have heard SwiftKey on Android also has good predictions, so I'm now curious if they are based on the same code or if that is a future improvement that is yet to come?

As of 2.0 the PlayBook keyboard using Swiftkey's technology. I don't think there has been any statements on whether the BB10 keyboard is still using Swiftkey's technology, but I imagine it is using it, but this time with RIM's own more customized user interface over top of it.

[greatwiseone]

It's an interesting strategy that RIM pursued for several years to get all these assets and put them together into BB10 (Thorsten Heins talked about this at the press session at BBW last week and others at RIM have noted this in previous events).

If you read TA McCann's blog post on Gist post acquisition, you get a flavour as to what has happened and how RIM's using these different pieces. Buying smaller companies make it easier to integrate (other than TAT and QNX, both of which had hundreds + employees I think). Here's a link to his blog post: Life after acquisition | Gist

The acquisition strategy can also backfire like what you see in the yahoo article TA quotes in his blog post...

[CrackBB.com]

Pretty good list, i think there are a few missing but who could remember them all? Nice compilation, a bit of good information for sure.

[xsacha]

Is the current PlayBook keyboard made by SwiftKey or is that talking the BB10 one? I have always liked the current keyboard, and thought it's predictions were always good - I have heard SwiftKey on Android also has good predictions, so I'm now curious if they are based on the same code or if that is a future improvement that is yet to come?

The current Playbook keyboard is pretty much vanilla SwiftKey. Yes, it's same predictions as the Android one.

It has gone under a lot of customisation in BB10 and offers features not seen on Android (such as the swiping).

What do they use Twonky for?

Could also add 7Digital, powering the Music Store on PB and BlackBerry.

Twonky is a media streamer. Found it embedded in the Dev Alpha. I haven't actually seen the app but what else could 'Twonky' refer to right?

[peter9477]

I think this one may be misleading: "Bought Cascades graphical toolkit (based on Qt): TAT"

They did buy TAT, and got Cascades with it, but Cascades was not at the time based on Qt (as far as I know).

RIM has since invested a huge amount in migrating Cascades (maybe "rewriting" is more accurate?) to couple it to Qt instead. The same could probably be said about at least a few others in that list as well, including QNX. QNX as it will exist in BB10 certainly doesn't look exactly like the QNX they got when they bought the company.

[xsacha]

I think this one may be misleading: "Bought Cascades graphical toolkit (based on Qt): TAT"

They did buy TAT, and got Cascades with it, but Cascades was not at the time based on Qt (as far as I know).

RIM has since invested a huge amount in migrating Cascades (maybe "rewriting" is more accurate?) to couple it to Qt instead. The same could probably be said about at least a few others in that list as well, including QNX. QNX as it will exist in BB10 certainly doesn't look exactly like the QNX they got when they bought the company.

Well of course RIM changes what their subsidiaries are working on as soon as they buy them. Otherwise they would just license their stuff.

The list is just to show where they came from. Cascades (Qt version) came from the TAT team that they bought. Likewise, some of the other companies they bought didn't actually have the Playbook app when they bought them -- this came after.

[greatwiseone]

I think a lot of the delay of Cascades had to do with rewriting/porting it over to Qt. Even Docs to Go had to be redone for PlayBook and likely for BB10.

Obviously RIM makes changes to the technology of the companies they purchased (e.g. Mobile Fusion is definitely different from the previous product offered by Ubitexx).

Forgot to add another one to the list:

Dash Navigation - BB Traffic (before TomTom hopped on board).

[FMB8900]

Thanks for posting this list! Lets hope RIM can properly execute with all these resources and technology they have now.

[VerryBestr]

What did CEO Thorsten Heins mean when, during the last conference call, he said: "Another key area where we will be making significant change is in our services business. Here, I'm referring specifically to the consumer-oriented, value-added services business that we have attempted to build over the past 2.5 years through numerous various acquisitions."

Specifically, what would be the "numerous various acquisitions" that no longer match RIM's strategic orientation and require "significant change?" Would RIM be thinking about selling some of its acquisitions?

Here is a list of RIM's acquisitions (additions & corrections please!):
2012/Mar Paratek
2011/Nov "unnamed company"
2011/10/21 RIM Acquires NewBay
2011/7/21 RIM Acquires JayCut
2011/6/7 RIM Acquires Scoreloop
2011/5/31 RIM Acquires Ubitexx
2011/May tinyHippos
2011/April Tungle
2011/2/14 RIM Acquires Gist
2010/12/2 RIM Acquires The Astonishing Tribe
2010/8/25 RIM Acquires Cellmania
2010/7/12 RIM Acquires Assets of DataViz
2010/6/1 RIM Completes Acquisition of QNX Software System
2010/Mar Viigo
2009/8/21 RIM Acquires Torch Mobile
2009/5/22 RIM Acquires Venture-Backed Dash Navigation
2009/Mar Certicom
2008/Dec Chalk Media
2006/3/10 Research In Motion Acquires Ascendent Systems
2002 M-Stack

Scoreloop was a "consumer-oriented" acquisition, but I don't see RIM abandoning its emphasis on linking games and BBM. Nothing has yet appeared from JayCut, but the documents leaked to biggulpseh indicate that a video editor from JayCut is on the way. While NewBay's cloud services were consumer-oriented, surely RIM will use NewBay to develop some kind of cloud services, perhaps security- and business-oriented. Plus, JayCut's video editor was cloud-based, so perhaps their PlayBook/BB10 editor will also be cloud-based. Dash Navigation doesn't fit in the 2.5 year time frame.

In short, other then the NewBay orientation, I can't identify the "numerous various acquisitions" of the last 2.5 years which require "significant change?" Can anyone help me?

xsacha's great list emphasizes how some of these acquisitions as well as other licensed software are important for RIM's plans.

[Thunderbuck]

RIM has already announced a "cloud" strategy for enterprise based on NewBay's technology. Presumably, that's adaptable to the consumer space in some way, say for syncing music a la iCloud.

I think the acquisition strategy can work in the long run; instead of trying to get in-house engineers working in an entirely new field, you can buy a company that's already filled with experts. "Digesting" these acquisitions can be an issue, mind you.

In RIM's case, they've made some outstanding buys. Torch Mobile is already giving them an outstanding browser experience. QNX is arguably best-in-field, and it didn't hurt that they were just down the road. TAT has an amazing vision of the user experience.

There's a lot they've bought fairly recently, though, and I'm sure the "digestion" process hasn't run its course. I also suspect the whole TAT/QNX integration thing has taken a lot longer than planned.