[bigman2]

This seemed like the most appropriate forum for this, but obviously the mods can feel free to move it to wherever.

I'll also preface this by saying I have absolutely no expectation of it happening, I'm just in one of my late night philosophical mindsets.

With all the unhappiness that people seem to have with the Storm's OS, and someone posing the idea of what it would be like if someone ported Linux to the Storm, it got me to thinking about whether or not it might make sense for RIM to join Google's Android alliance thing, and maybe start transitioning away from it's own home grown OS to the Android platform.

My basic reasoning goes along as follows. RIM could add all of its mobile platform expertise to improving the Android platform, while at the same time being able to take advantage of efforts by other companies, and even individual hobbyists. They just hold back a few of the crown jewels, so to speak, like push email, and make those as proprietary modules that are only found on Blackberry devices. But rather than going it alone against everyone else, they can work with everyone to improve the base platform and some of the core apps. Share in the development costs with everyone else working on Android.

I'll cop to never really having had the chance to play around with the G1 or Android in general, so most of what I know about it is second hand info at best. From what I've gathered, it's not bad for a first effort, but still needs some work. I figure with all the expertise RIM could bring to the table, it could dramatically shorten the time needed.

So while I'm sure RIM has at least considered the possibility and decided against it... At least for the time being... It's a fun little mental "what if" problem to kick around while we await the next leak... Which I have absolutely no info on, so don't ask.

[howardb]

RIM would be much better served by opening up their platform and creating an app store to try and get hobbyists developing for their already well developed proprietary nugget.