Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) has denied claims that it was looking to buy the struggling Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM), or licensing its upcoming Blackberry 10 operating system. We recently reported in an article where Peter Misek from Jefferies & Company is quoted, saying that BlackBerry 10 is likely to fail, and hinted, “RIM is attempting to revive discussions with Samsung regarding a BB10 licensing deal.”
According to Reuters, an influential analyst had said that the company would register its BlackBerry 10 OS with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94), and those remarks are believed to have driven RIM shares up by 5% earlier in the week. Meritz Securities analyst, Lee Sei-cheol, is quoted saying, “RIM has already lost its initiative in the smartphone market, and what is left doesn’t look really attractive to the likes of Samsung.”
Additionally, the analyst reckons that Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) would literally strike gold if it had a deep patent pool, saying, “should they have a deep patent pool, that might be the most appealing asset to potential acquirers.”
The speculation of Samsung’s likelihood of acquiring Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM), or licensing BlackBerry 10 operating system, was due to the nature of its business. The world’s largest smart phone maker currently has three operating systems within its portfolio of smart phones, including Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s android O.S, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Windows and its own proprietary operating system software, Bada.
Additionally, Samsung has a majority of its smart phones running on Google’s Android; Google Inc. recently acquired Motorola Mobility, a smart phone maker, which means that Google, can now produce its own smart phones. This could have triggered Samsung’s Interest to diversify, making RIM or BlackBerry 10 (“BB10”) O.S a perfect target. Nonetheless, as CNET reports, a representative from Samsung Electronics said, “Samsung Electronics has not considered the acquisition of Research in Motion or licensing BB10,”
Meanwhile, the speculation may be hitting up, but RIM has its own goals for the BB10, regardless of whether another smart phone maker decides to license it. The company plans to use the software in its next generation smart phone next year, something analysts perceive to be the company’s last hope in the smart phone business. Nonetheless, RIM is hopeful of licencing BB10 O.S with another smartphone maker, as it battles to cling on to various partnership opportunities.
Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) has been facing a customer retention challenge, and reported a heavy loss in its most recent quarter, and has been looking to boost its customer base, which currently stands at 80 million globally.
At time of this writing, Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) was up $0.31, or 4.07% to trade at $7.93 per share, from yesterday’s close.
