The rumor mill is chugging along in the new year and Research In Motion’s stock has jumped on the news that Samsung may be interested in buying the BlackBerry maker, according to a report from Bloomberg.
I’m not really sure how real or strong the interest from Samsung is but a move would help it in its bid to be the number one handset maker in the world because RIM – for all its trouble – still has more than 75 million users, deep hooks into the enterprise and a strong presence in the United States and multiple emerging markets. It wouldn’t be a cheap purchase by any means and it would surely face additional scrutiny from the Canadian government but I understand the appeal of an acquisition.
Of course, I spoke with RIM over the last few days and it didn’t sound like a company eager to be acquired. It was showing off the PlayBook OS 2.0 software at CES 2012 and it was very upbeat about future BB10 devices. I wouldn’t expect RIM to tip its hat to me about a buy anyways but I get the feeling we’ll hear a million acquisition rumors over the next few months, so let’s not try to get too excited until we hear something more meaningful.