

Google should buy RIM - BvS

According to this report http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-biggest-ip-war-chests-08042011-gfx.html RIM has the biggest I.P. war chest in mobile (more than Microsoft or even Nokia). With a current market cap of about 12 billion US$ it would be "only" 3 times more expensive than the Nortel patents but would bring much more to the table than just patents (RIM is stil pretty profitable and could help Google significantly in the attempt to gain more corporate clients).
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nextparadigms
Yes, that's what I was immediately thinking too when I saw that. RIM is still
quite expensive though, and unless they plan on turning RIM around and getting
a strong foothold in enterprise with Android within like a year, then $12
billion seems too expensive for patents.

This also reminds me what a mistake Google did when they didn't buy Palm. They
could've paid _only_ $1.2 billion for their huge mobile patent chest (probably
about as big as RIM), their WebOS technology, which I'm sure they could've
used, and also 1000 employees, where many of them were engineers. Palm
would've been a total bargain for Google.

With RIM, Google has 2 strategies:

1) Get them now by spending 1/3 of their cash, and immediately switch the
company to Android. If they move it fast and do it right, they have the
opportunity to make Android bigger in enterprise than iPhone will ever be.
With RIM, they also have the opportunity to make a _lot_ of money from
hardware - maybe close to what Apple is making. The downside is some Android
partners may not be too happy about this, but as long as they remain fair
towards them and give them access to Android no later their their own RIM
division, I don't think they'll mind it too much. They'll still want to use
Android because Android is still the most popular smartphone platform they can
use by far, right now. It's not much different than if Microsoft bought a PC
manufacturer.

What I'd love about it as a consumer, is that there would be a strong
manufacturer, Google's no less, that will make great stock Android
smartphones.

2) They can let RIM collapse, and buy them in 2013 for much less just for
their patents, maybe for 2-3 billions or so.

Either way they have to take into account that others, like Microsoft might
bid for them, too, although I'm not entirely sure Microsoft will buy them
right now, after their partnership with Nokia. And at least Android has 50%
market share, while WP7 has 1%, so Microsoft's other partners besides Nokia
might leave them altogether. And then if Microsoft can't turn WP around with
the fast declining RIM, and the even faster declining Nokia, they're gone from
the mobile space, and they'll take both RIM and Nokia with them. Google buying
RIM at its peak is one thing, Microsoft buying it when WP hasn't even become
larger than WebOS, is quite another. Why would the others stick around for an
OS that doesn't bring them any significant sales, and when Microsoft will play
strong favorites with Nokia and of course RIM, which would be theirs?

~~~
astrodust
I'm sure that Google could turn RIM into Google North and do quite well with
the people alone. The patent portfolio and the technology wouldn't hurt
either.

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rst
The trick, strategically, would be arranging to do this without having the
transaction turn into yet another bidding war --- which they'd be at risk of
losing once again to a coalition of their adversaries (as with the Nortel
patent auction).

Perhaps they could arrange a coalition of their own, involving IBM, or one of
the other phone manufacturers as the ones who would take over the actual phone
business...

~~~
nextparadigms
I was actually very surprised they didn't do this to begin with in the Nortel
case, especially since the patents being bought would've helped all of them.
The risk was simply too high for Google even if it was only Apple bidding
against them, without all the others. Apple has twice as much cash as they do,
and if Apple really wanted the patents, there's nothing Google could've done.

They need to set up a patent pool with their Android partners, and then start
bidding together for other patents as well. This would probably be the most
effective strategy that they can relatively quickly implement.

As for buying RIM together with other companies, I suppose Google could spend
a big part of their money to buy it, and then they'll sell the hardware
division to Samsung or whoever, the other divisions to other companies, and
keep only the patents for themselves. But they'll have to make the deals prior
buying RIM, so they can make their money back later.

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benfwirtz
Guess it won't happen now, Google just bought Motorolla for (about) the same
price they could have bought RIM: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/breaking-
google-buys-motoro...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/breaking-google-buys-
motorola-for-12-5-billion/)

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presty
Google buying RIM would make the other Phone companies very unsettled

