[playbookster]

Id like to see Lenovo laptops running BB10 but not a buyout of RIM. On top of that, I don't see how Lenovo could even afford to buy RIM after looking at their financials. Their total assets equal 15 billion and RIM is worth 13.7 billion...

[southlander]

3) My own personal favorite: Lenovo might license BB10. This makes more sense than many might think; Lenovo is doing well in China with Android, but may not want to **** heads with Samsung in Western markets. If they were to license BB10 it would give them a distinct product.

Perhaps even an exclusive license.

[randall2580]

If you watch Thorsten Heins every time he's been asked about licensing BB10 to a competing phone company - he diverts the conversation to using BB10/QNX in fields other than smartphones. Yes he never rules it out - but you can just tell by his facial expression RIM is not competing with BB10 phones produced by anyone else.

Now, could they give Lenovo a license to produce and sell BB10 phones to the China market only - I think that could be a possibility - seeing as both are currently struggling in China, and who knows, a phone or two might make it's way out of China on someones person only to be sold on ebay. But I do not ever expect you will see a Lenovo version of BB10 running on a smartphone in a store near you (if you live in a market other than China). I also don't think you ever see a Samsung, an HTC, a blah blah blah...

You will however see BB10 in medical devices, in cars, perhaps on your fridge, do Lenovo make fridges?

If Lenovo thinks BB10 will spice up their phones - they are going to have to buy the company. I leave it to those smarter than I - if Canada would ever allow that.

[RECOOL]

I dont know about Rims hardware division outside they make phones and tablets from my guess.These talks just look like hardware deal for Rims mobile platform. If Rim venture out to creating tabtop/convertables partnering with lenova makes sense.

Thast all I see from this. Early talksof hardware partnership everything else is smokescreen.

[anon(4018671)]

kinda risky to just sell off your main money machine. It seems a lot more likely that a partnership of some kind would happen but its funny seeing "for those who do" after Lenovo. Almost like they are "trying it on" to see public reaction.

Its in RIM best interest to maximize BB10 compatibility, what ever they can do to promote it is fine with me. Can't see an outright sale to a Chinese company obviously.
QNX everywhere!

[lnichols]

Kiss some US Government business goodbye then Lenovo!

[jonty12]

As someone typing this response on a five-year old Lenovo ThinkPad that has only had to have it's battery replaced I can say I'd be pretty happy with Lenovo running the hardware show. I've worked at, and have clients at, several financial services companies (global 20K-150K employees) that exclusively use ThinkPads. Many stuck with Lenovo after the IBM sale (they had been IBM customers), others moved to Lenovo after having enough of Dell.

Bottom line is that Lenovo is, much like RIM, embedded in many large corporate customers. Also, much like RIM makes the best keyboards in the mobile business, Lenovo makes the best keyboards on the laptop business. It's a good match.

*disclosure: My home laptop is a ThinkPad (R-Series) circa 2007/2008, my work laptop is ThinkPad (X-230) circa 2012.

[kevinnugent]

As the Bloomberg story notes, the concept of a Chinese company buying RIM would raise serious security questions that could lead to any potential deal getting blocked by U.S. regulators.

RIM is Canadian. The US regulators wouldn't have a say.

[silversun10]

RIM is Canadian. The US regulators wouldn't have a say.

Canadian govt will mirror any problems that US regulators have, besides for RIM to go against the will of the US regulators is not
all that likely, RIM no doubt will want to continue to showcase the US president as a high profile user, let alone all the US govt contracts,
thirdly if Lenovo realizes the US won't play along, what is the point anyways?

[sexybabe88]

Lenovo definitely has the resources to bring bb10 out there. licensing it? could be the best option for RIM but there is not much in it for lenovo if they are unable to control the software. it would still be at the mercy of rim just like the position nokia is in right now.

from a bb10 perspective, a lenovo purchase could potentially turn the face of future smartphone wars to lenovo running bb10 vs samsung on android/tizen. In the interest of shareholders, I feel that any offer in the region of high 20s should be an instant sell.

i'm not canadian so i can't identify with the country thing some of you have brought up but i definitely don't see any utility in keeping the company purely canadian. I mean, the CEO himself is german so what does that say?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[williaml]

What I would hope for is a truly joint venture (not just one way with Lenovo buying any part of RIM). Maybe something like this: Lenovo produces all BB hardware, but in exchange RIM gets the ThinkPad line to develop as BB10 computers. Maybe just a dream, but if RIM engineers took over the product line and brought it back to its roots, it would be an excellent starting point for the mobile computer platform.

Basically, I'd like to see RIM design the hardware (phones, tablets, and computers) at least for the high end (leave China market, for example, to Lenovo) and Lenovo produce it; however, I'd also like to see RIM get something out of it (ideally the ThinkPad line, or a subset of it, for a BB10 convertible tablet on rugged enterprise hardware).

[kevinnugent]

Canadian govt will mirror any problems that US regulators have, besides for RIM to go against the will of the US regulators is not
all that likely, RIM no doubt will want to continue to showcase the US president as a high profile user, let alone all the US govt contracts,
thirdly if Lenovo realizes the US won't play along, what is the point anyways?

I'm not saying it's possible, in fact I can't actually see Lenovo being allowed anywhere near RIM - BUT - my point was that the US regulators wouldn't get a say. At all. But it's all hypothetical.

[FlashFlare11]

If you watch Thorsten Heins every time he's been asked about licensing BB10 to a competing phone company - he diverts the conversation to using BB10/QNX in fields other than smartphones. Yes he never rules it out - but you can just tell by his facial expression RIM is not competing with BB10 phones produced by anyone else.

Now, could they give Lenovo a license to produce and sell BB10 phones to the China market only - I think that could be a possibility - seeing as both are currently struggling in China, and who knows, a phone or two might make it's way out of China on someones person only to be sold on ebay. But I do not ever expect you will see a Lenovo version of BB10 running on a smartphone in a store near you (if you live in a market other than China). I also don't think you ever see a Samsung, an HTC, a blah blah blah...

You will however see BB10 in medical devices, in cars, perhaps on your fridge, do Lenovo make fridges?

If Lenovo thinks BB10 will spice up their phones - they are going to have to buy the company. I leave it to those smarter than I - if Canada would ever allow that.

This is what I think, too. Heins always talks about the BlackBerry 10 "platform" when talking about anything other than BB10 smartphones. I highly doubt RIM will license the software to competing phone manufacturers. Even if it does, it will only do so to gain penetration into emerging markets (and even this, I doubt). With QNX, RIM has opened gateways into numerous industries. We're only thinking about phones because this is where RIM currently competes. But Heins is looking much farther than that.

To be completely honest, I don't know if RIM can survive as a company in this highly competitive smartphone market being solely a smartphone manufacturer and software developer. Apple, Microsoft, and Google all compete in numerous other sectors and their smartphone division is only a part of their vast portfolio of products. RIM needs to enter markets in which it currently does not compete to supplement itself and its smartphone business. QNX allows this and I think it may be the single most important acquisition in RIM's history.

[DuexNoir]

So, we just got a statement from Jim Flaherty regarding a possible Lenovo/RIM association. In paraphrase, the Canadian government says it will look "very carefully" into this should the situation arise. So, unlike the previous statement they made, this statement clearly indicates that there is still a possibility the Canadian government will block it.

We haven't heard any reaction from RIM, at least I haven't, but what Lenovo has done here could simply be testing the water, gauging the reaction of the higher ups.

[lorax1284]

(lorax1284 falls to his knees, clenches his hands into fists leans back and looks up into the heavens and shouts...)

Nooooooo!

And at some point throws a lit zippo lighter onto a burning vehicle and walks away in slow motion, not even flinching as the huge fireball rises into the sky about 15 feet behind him... not sure why he'd do that, but it says right here in the script on page 37...

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

If the Chinese get a hold of the NOC we are doomed

[FSeverino]

AS for the issue of our Government NOT allowing the sale... I would say anything other then a complete sell/turnover to Lenovo would be a win for both RIM and the Canadian Government.
Lenovo is a very well trusted business brand and if the CND GVT wants to see RIM survive this would be an ideal way to do so. Why NOT have every business running BB10 phones with PBs and Lenovo Laptops? I know a lot of businesses didnt go for PBs because they were too small or werent 'advanced' enough for their jobs (ive heard this on a lot of occasions) ... but how many businesses use lenovo laptops? Integrate the laptops with RIM security and everything else the business sides use RIM for... it would bring a Canadian company worldwide again, and most likely in a very rooted way.

It wont happen overnight... but after using windows 8... well... RIM can run through the 'business' door like its the tape at the end of the 100m sprint.

[kevinnugent]

AS for the issue of our Government NOT allowing the sale... I would say anything other then a complete sell/turnover to Lenovo would be a win for both RIM and the Canadian Government.
Lenovo is a very well trusted business brand and if the CND GVT wants to see RIM survive this would be an ideal way to do so. Why NOT have every business running BB10 phones with PBs and Lenovo Laptops? I know a lot of businesses didnt go for PBs because they were too small or werent 'advanced' enough for their jobs (ive heard this on a lot of occasions) ... but how many businesses use lenovo laptops? Integrate the laptops with RIM security and everything else the business sides use RIM for... it would bring a Canadian company worldwide again, and most likely in a very rooted way.

It wont happen overnight... but after using windows 8... well... RIM can run through the 'business' door like its the tape at the end of the 100m sprint.

I think what you said made sense when Lenovo was an IBM company brand. Now that it's part of the Chinese Government, not so much. Sorry. Not being racist, but the Chinese have a very different relationship with the western world than IBM did.

[FSeverino]

Ah, this is actually true. I keep forgetting that even happened.

well i guess my last sentence still stands lol

[timmy t]

I think RIM should state categorically that they will not sell to the Chinese company and only licensing of its OS is a possibility. RIM should state that it will always control the NOC.
Otherwise, some people might worry that the Chinese government might get access to some information that is transmitted through it.

[timmy t]

... but how many businesses use lenovo laptops?...

Would these businesses use Lenovo laptops if their information was routed through some Lenovo controlled network?