IBM showing interest in RIM enterprise services

Yesterday we reported that Samsung had no intentions of acquiring Research In Motion, the troubled company behind the iconic BlackBerry smartphone. News today has highlighted that their enterprise services unit has attracted the interest of IBM, according to sources close to the link.

IBM have approached RIM about a possible divisional takeover. This part of the business control the network of secure servers used to support Blackberry devices.

No other company has shown an interest in buying RIM and many analysts say that everything rides on the success of the Blackberry 10 phones. The company need a change of fortunes sooner rather than later, as they have already been experiencing a huge drop in sales – down 43 percent last quarter. RIM are no longer in the world's top five smartphone makers, according to research organisation IDC.

RIM have a new CEO in Thorsten Heins, taking over in January. So far he hasn't been able to reverse the decline, but he has said that he would prefer to find a partner or license the RIM operating system.

Many people are waiting to see the upcoming range of Blackberry 10 smartphones, although initial reports indicate that they won't ship with a physical keyboard. This is likely to alienate a large portion of business users who still use the Blackberry phones, primarily for their excellent, physical QWERTY keyboards.

Kitguru says: Unsure times for RIM, but we hope they manage to come out the other side, stronger. It would be a shame to lose such an iconic company.

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