Microsoft, Nokia Named as Potential RIM Suitors

 

Microsoft and Nokia have been named as potential buyers of Research In Motion by The Wall Street Journal, which on Wednesday reported that the two companies had in recent months discussed of a joint bid for the struggling BlackBerry maker.

The Journal report comes on the heels of a Reuters article from earlier in the week that identified Amazon as a potential RIM suitor before being rebuffed by a company that "prefers to fix its problems on its own."

It's unclear if the interest in RIM from Microsoft and Nokia remains intact, the Journal reported. The newspaper said details about how the two companies had "flirted with the idea" of teaming up to acquire the Canadian smartphone maker came from "people familiar with the matter."

Reuters had earlier reported that RIM "has turned down takeover overtures" from Amazon and other unnamed suitors. The company's board is instead pushing management to focus on making better products, looking for commercial partnerships with companies like Amazon, and possibly restructuring, the news agency reported.

RIM has struggled mightily in 2011, posting disappointing quarterly returns under co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, while dealing with the fallout of a major service outage earlier this year and the lack of demand for its first consumer tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Influential RIM shareholders like Jaguar Financial have recently pressured management to broker a sale of the company or else to break it up and sell it off in parts.

Despite some sources saying that RIM's board had ""set aside any options for a sale," one Reuters source, identified only as a U.S.-based RIM investor, said the company "was now essentially on the block."

"This story puts RIM in play, because shareholders are going to put it in play," the source said. "It's over. This is now a company where the activists are in charge."

"RIM's standard policy is to decline comment on rumors and speculation," a company spokesperson told PCMag.com in response to a request for comment on the acquisition rumors.