RIM Wants Shotgun Wedding with Mobile Ad Platform
Research in Motion reportedly is shopping for a mobile ad platform to help the BlackBerry maker better compete with Apple’s iAds and Google’s AdMob. The only hitch: the company that tops RIM’s list of candidates — Millennial Media — just isn’t that interested in being acquired.
Millennial Media CEO Paul Palmieri told the Wall Street Journal the company wants to launch an initial public offering and remain independent. If snatched-up by RIM, Palmieri’s company would lose all the opportunity to serve ads to the lucrative iPhone, iPad and other iOS devices protected by Apple’s iOS developer agreement. The agreement, initially aimed at Google, denies ad network access, unless approved by Cupertino. Since Apple has its own ad network – iAd – its unlikely Millennial would get another bite of the Apple.
Then there is the price Millennial wants: $400 to $500 million. This could be a ‘poison pill’ for RIM. After all, Apple paid $270 million for Quattro Wireless, which became iAds. Google paid $750 million for AdMob, a figure likely sweetened to outbid Apple.
Why is RIM so interested in becoming a player in mobile advertising? Perhaps due to its lukewarm reception for handsets that might rival the iPhone or Google’s Android. Android-based phones have taken the spotlight for Verizon, after RIM’s previous iPhone-like handsets flopped. RIM’s latest attempt to squeeze under the iPhone halo is the BlackBerry Torch, a handset that shipped just 150,000 units and is being mentioned alongside the ho-hum debuts of Sprint’s Palm Pre and HTC EVO 4G. The result of all these missteps: RIM’s share of the smartphone market slid to 17.8 percent, down from 19.1 percent for the year, according to IDC.
Apple, meanwhile, is firing on all cylinders: selling iPhones and iPads faster than can be produced, readying an iOS-based TV product and being praised by advertisers about the success of iAds.
[AppleInsider, WSJ]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
