Perhaps choosing a Headquarters in Waterloo can be considered in retrospect a warning sign.
But if arrogance has been part of the problem for RIM, Facebook and Apple as acquirers don’t make a lot of sense to me. Here is why.
1) Facebook is looking for a magic pill that pushes out B2C marketing, not a company with an existing base that sees the Web as a distraction. Additionally, Facebook has shown no sign of how to make a logical business deal. They have bought like drunken sailors one minute and misers the next, but they have never done a deal that was subject to tremendous scrutiny. So the only way this works if someone can talk to the business logic of this deal at Facebook, and I don’t think they can. Facebook employees are going to take it on the chin with taxes from the IPO debacle, and this is would only hurt.
2) Apple is not a company that does well with multiple product lines. They have a history of consolidating their mix and they are like Facebook all about the consumption. A good friend who admires Apple has always pointed out that the best thing about Apple is that they are not paying any attention to their enterprise customers. Over half of the bloat in MS software is in support of some enterprise need they have succumbed to. RIM is a product line built for the Enterprise, not for the consumer. If Apple intends to extend the portfolio, we should expect designers to find the Engineers of RIM unworkable. It will not be an easy marriage.
Who, then, should be next in the mix?
1) Google has the option of expanding the portfolio and they could even blend Schaumberg and Waterloo and relaunch the two as one. While I initially thought this was a fantasy, I have to say there are some interesting aspects. The cost averaging of patent protection is a better portfolio mix for the Enterprise. This could work if Google wants to separate out the patent portfolio from phone manufacturing.
2) Microsoft has always been feared by carriers for having too much customer control, but the Internet has made stranger bedfellow and the combination of Nokia and RIM as partners does two things: First, It makes a better mix of consumer and enterprise products to go with the Microsoft suite of solutions, and second, it takes companies that have been the two biggest partners to the carriers and brings Microsoft in as a friend – not a foe.
3) Oracle is the one I like the most, and as usual it will be the hardest to explain. RIM is a JAVA shop and Oracle owns JAVA. In fact, it helps with the frustrated patent battles with Google of JAVA offshoots. Then there is the vindication of Larry. With RIM, he can have the Internet Toaster he always dreamed of, and make it an Enterprise solution.
4) Yahoo. This is a stretch, but given that new board and their desire to stop milking the cash cow and get back in the growth game, it makes more sense than you’d initially think. Especially when you consider that a lot of legacy carriers have solutions that support both.
Now I want to be clear. I like what RIM is doing and I think they could navigate to find a strategy that allows them to get out of the mess. We interviewed several Web developers that love the efforts at RIM and we see them doing a lot of great things with BB10. But at the price they are in the market, the barbarians are at the gate and pragmatically they should listen to offers.
Edited by
Braden Becker
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