RIM’s stock rose 4.24% today to close at $7.62. The main reason for the slight jump was speculation of Samsung possibly considering an acquisition, or a licensing the BlackBerry 10 OS. According to Peter Misek, analyst from Jefferies, stated that “Given recent management comments in the press, it now appears that RIM is realizing what Wall Street has been saying for some time: they are a subscale manufacturer and desperately need a partner. We believe RIM is attempting to revive discussions with Samsung regarding a BB10 licensing deal.”
It’s certainly a possibility as Thorsten Heins, RIM’s CEO, even commented last week that “We don’t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There’s different options we could do that we’re currently investigating.”
However, Samsung is not a contender. In a statement to AllThingsD, Samsung declared they are not interested in RIM, noting that “Samsung Electronics has not considered the acquisition of Research in Motion or licensing BB10.” Does that sound familiar? Similar rumours of a Samsung/RIM deal surfaced in January with Sammy basically having the same comment: “We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM)”
RIM is still focussed on bringing their new BB10 OS and devices to the world sometime in Q1 2013.
Source: AllThingsD
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