Two aging tech powerhouses came together Tuesday in Orlando, Fla. Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, speaking at Research in Motion’s BlackBerry World conference, announced his company will “invest uniquely” in RIM. In addition, Microsoft announced its Bing search engine and mapping will be integrated into BlackBerry phones at the OS level.
“Bing on BlackBerry tastes more like Windows Phone 7 than BlackBerry” tweeted NPD analyst Ross Rubin. The announcement comes just days after analysts blasted RIM for retreating on its quarterly financial forecast
The announcement prompted some to see touches of an earlier Microsoft agreement with cell phone giant Nokia. In February, Nokia announced it would use Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS instead of Symbian. Nokia, which has lost market share to Apple, recently announced it would outsource its Symbian team, reducing its payroll.
RIM used the BlackBerry conference to also refute critics of the recently-released PlayBook tablet. Along with introducing the popular “Angry Birds” app for the PlayBook, the handset maker also gave every BlackBerry World participant a free 16GB PlayBook.
Much of the news came from industry analyst attending the RIM event, including Gartner’s Michael Gartenberg.
[CNET, Business Insider, Gartenberg’s Tweets]
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.
13 responses to “Microsoft to Invest in RIM – Is QNX on the Way Out?”
Microsoft was so far behind the iPhone-Android juggernaut that desperate measures were required. Pay Nokia to use Windows Phone. Pay RIM to use Windows Phone. What’s next? Pay customers to use Windows Phone?
Can you visualize Microsoft squirming?
That be kind of cool, to have Gates and Co. pay us to use their crap!… jajaja
Balmer is such a fool and an anachronism as well. It’s like he’s stuck in the late 80’s early 90’s when business folk talked up a lot of stupid buzzwords and added extra nonsense adjectives to their sentences just to “punch things up.”
Why “uniquely invest” instead of just “invest?” They are not going to invest in a way *different* from the way everyone has always invested. They are not going to invest *only* in RIM (they have their own phone of course).
Balmer couldn’t make a clear meaningful statement to save his life.
Microsoft is really going downhill now. I criticised Gates, just because I preferred Apple, but to be honest, he was way better than Balmer is.
Getting an alternative search and mapping provider from Google isn’t going to damage RIM.
RIM surely have seen what happens if you partner too closely with Microsoft though, and I’m sure they’re not considering WP7 in any way. Not with the way Microsoft treats its partners. PlaysForSure! Until we say no.
Indeed that’s why RIM bought QNX. It needed a platform for the next decade, and the old BBOS can’t keep up with iOS and Android.
“Uniquely invest” means that RIM wouldn’t take any MS money in exchange for using any Microsoft technology, so instead they paid them to make Bing the default home page for the browser. I wonder how much RIM got for that?
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RIM has strange culture and self distruct political environment.
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In RIM if a new hired person figure out major problem and introduce efficient approach, both manager and his buddy group member will proof their wrong approach works. just like someone point out driving a car is right way, pushing a car is wrong way, then both manager and his buddy group member will hate you, and proof that 3 person can also move the car by pushing it. cheating email will be sent to some vice president, saying like: see, the car moving, pushing a car is a natural part of the process, in order to deny new hired contribution of introducing skill of drive a car, they have to deny merit of driving a car.
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It is very strange company culture and strange company political environment, it promote stealing and cheating skill. RIM’s management may be a typical instance in MBA course.
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This culture deny or steal hardworking team members’ contribution/innovation, generate strange political environment, destroy RIM.
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