John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Who Will License RIM’s BlackBerry Platform?

Research In Motion is considering hiring a financial adviser, but not to put itself on the block.

Evidently, the company has no plans to sell — not at this time, anyway.

No, RIM is looking for an investment bank to help it license its smartphone software or broker a strategic outside investment in the company.

An inevitable move, as the company conducts CEO Thorsten Heins’s “comprehensive review of strategic opportunities,” though it does sound like a bit of a dead end. After all, who could possibly be interested in licensing RIM’s BlackBerry platform, particularly the as-of-yet unreleased and unproven BlackBerry 10? Nokia has cast its lot with Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. And Motorola, Samsung and HTC have all cast theirs with Google’s Android OS. Both platforms have broader and stronger app ecosystems than RIM’s.

So, again, who could possibly be interested in licensing an unproven fourth BlackBerry OS with an inferior ecosystem?

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus