Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier today we reported that according to an analyst, Samsung was reportedly in talks with RIM about licensing Blackberry 10. This isn’t the first time that it has been suggested that a company was interested in either taking over the Blackberry arm of RIM or licensing its software, and while RIM has admitted that they are looking into the possibility of licensing out their technology, Samsung has come forward and denied the recent reports. In a request for comment from All Things D, a Samsung spokesperson was quoted as saying, “Samsung Electronics has not considered the acquisition of Research In Motion or licensing BB10.” So there you have it, unless Samsung was trying to be coy with us, it seems that there is no possibility of Samsung licensing Blackberry 10 or taking over RIM in the near future. While this has been discussed before in the past, what are your thoughts about another OEM putting out Blackberry devices? Yay or nay?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung could license BlackBerry 10, Analyst does not believe Blackberry 10 will be able to steal any market share from Apple,

We know that RIM is planning on launching their new Blackberry 10 platform later this year, which is also the company’s attempt to try to regain some of their former glory which they experienced back in the day. Whether they will be successful or not remains to be seen, but as far analyst Peter Misek from Jefferies & Co. is concerned, while he sees Blackberry 10 as an improvement over Blackberry 7 and has potential, he does not think that it has the ability to take any market share away from Apple. He also does not believe that it will be an improvement over the upcoming iOS 6 and believes it to be on par with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. We have yet to try BB10 for ourselves so we can’t speak of its features and capabilities, so we guess we have to wait and see if Misek’s predictions will come true.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: RIM once considered the idea of switching to Android, RIM’s CEO talks about the possibility of licensing,

Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, the Galaxy Nexus for Sprint and Verizon Wireless each became available for free, while in the MVNO world, Simple Mobile dropped the price of its high-speed unlimited smartphone plan to $50. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of July 30th, 2012.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of July 30th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Mobile Miscellany: week of July 30th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM’s current CEO Thorsten Heins has been very candid about his company’s plans and past, but he has usually given the impression that the company wouldn’t even consider deviating from its one true vision of a BlackBerry OS future. Although BlackBerry 10 is very much the center of RIM’s universe today, Heins has revealed to The Telegraph that his firm’s eyes did stray briefly — at one point, it “seriously” investigated Android as a platform. The company ended up backing away after deciding a “me-too” strategy didn’t fit the productivity-obsessed BlackBerry crowd, the executive says. RIM decided, like Nokia, that it couldn’t differentiate enough in Google’s ecosystem. There’s still some time to go before we learn whether or not the gamble on the in-house OS pays off. If Heins’ comments still leave you dreaming of what might have been, though, don’t worry: at least a few companies are providing their own visions in a slightly more tangible form.

Filed under: Cellphones

RIM chief: we looked ‘seriously’ at Android, didn’t want to join the herd originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM is investigating licensing out BlackBerry 10 to rival manufacturers, building reference designs that it would then allow other companies to produce in bulk. Again denying that RIM is in a financial slump, CEO Thorsten Heins confirmed to the Telegraph that the company is “investigating” the possibility of licensing the upcoming new platform, revealing that “we’re working with the financial advisers to see if we do this where it would take the company.”

According to Heins, RIM’s problem is that it’s at a significant evolution point where a new OS is essential, but it lacks the heft to take on that challenge as, say, Microsoft might. “We don’t have the resources like a Microsoft” he pointed out, “we have to place one bet and mike it right; we don’t want to go for an intermediate step.”

The problems of OS strategy are then repeated when it comes to actually pushing out phones running BlackBerry 10. Unlike Microsoft, which licenses Windows Phone rather than make its own handsets, RIM currently has to do both parts. That, Heins concedes, is proving difficult to keep up with.

“We don’t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year” the CEO said. “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.”

As he sees it, RIM would do the core design work on software and “best fit” hardware, and then throw open the field to licensees. “You could think about us building a reference system” he explains, “and then basically licensing that reference design, have others build the hardware around it – either it’s a BlackBerry or it’s something else being built on the BlackBerry platform.”

The key, Heins insists, is to “not abandon the subscriber base”, which is currently being forced to wait a little longer with its BlackBerry 7 devices after the replacement platform was pushed back into early 2013.

RIM doing the sums on BlackBerry 10 licensing admits CEO is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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