Exclusive: Amazon weighed buying RIM but interest cooled:sources
(Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd has turned down takeover overtures from Amazon.com Inc and other potential buyers because the BlackBerry maker prefers to fix its problems on its own, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Reuters report lands seven months after talk of a change at RIM's top surfaced amid the company's struggles, and it revives an old pattern: back in 2007 Ars Technica reported Microsoft cooking up some BlackBerry pie. What is new is the caliber of suitor — Amazon, riding confirmed holiday momentum with the $199 Kindle Fire selling at a loss and more than one million Kindles moving per week.
The sourcing is contested: Reuters' sources describe overtures RIM turned down in favor of fixing itself, but that account was denied, and the Amazon-interest claim remains unconfirmed. The Wall Street Journal's pickup of the same story widened the frame to Microsoft and Nokia also having flirted with RIM, suggesting multiple parties tested the waters even if no bid matured.
First-order effects
- RIM's board faces immediate pressure to show the standalone plan is credible, since the denial leaves investors with a turnaround thesis resting entirely on management's own execution rather than a white-knight bid.
- Amazon's interest cooling removes a hypothetical exit for RIM shareholders while costing Amazon nothing strategically — its Fire tablet gives it a hardware beachhead without absorbing a declining handset franchise.
Second-order effects
- Other rumored suitors named in the coverage, Microsoft and Nokia, now face the same calculus Amazon did: whether RIM's enterprise base and patent position justify a bid against a seller insisting it is not for sale.
- With no acquirer setting a floor under the stock, RIM's suppliers, carrier partners, and enterprise customers have more reason to hedge their BlackBerry commitments, accelerating the very erosion the company says it can reverse alone.
Third-order effects
- If struggling device makers keep refusing takeovers while buyers pivot to platform-owned hardware like Android-based tablets, consolidation in smartphones stalls and value migrates from handset franchises to ecosystems and content pipelines.
- A pattern of rebuffed overtures followed by forced restructurings would push boards of distressed tech companies toward earlier engagement with buyers — before the asset depreciates past the point where any bid clears the board's pride.
The trend: Distressed smartphone incumbents are testing buyer interest while betting on solo turnarounds, even as acquirers increasingly prefer building platform-controlled hardware over buying legacy handset businesses.