Research in Motion [RIM] which was once steering its way to become a top Smart Phone company is  now in decline. Earlier this year RIM announced that it had the biggest revenue drop since nine years, which resulted in reducing staffs and many moved to different companies including Samsung. RIM has lost Market share continuously to Apple. IPhone and Android phones made decline of profit and share value of RIM. Its time for RIM "to go". Who can be a potential buyer?

RIM after loosing market share launched BB7 OS which was not so successful. Earlier this year they announced QNX/BB10 phones, which is yet to hit the market. RIM spokesperson said that QNX based devices will be launched when dual core processors are available and earlier this month RIM said that processor needed to run QNX devices will be available only in next years. No wonder if you would think QNX is a kind of resource hungry desktop OS. QNX is a real time embedded OS. If they cannot work it on previous generation processors, they have no hope.

Amazon 

Amazon buying RIM is not very likely. Amazon have huge fan base and sells many kindle reader every day. If buying RIM , Amazon could user their patent and hardware resources. Amazon have  already put considerable resources behind its own flavor of Android, which is heavily customized to the point where it is unrecognizable. Amazon doesn't need to inherent the old BB7 platform, and likely would not know what to do with QNX/BB10. Its unclear how, or if, Amazon would mash up the Kindle with the BlackBerry.

Microsoft 

Microsoft with its new Windows 7 OS is struggling to gain market share which is dominated by Apple's ios and Google's Android.  Another platform to survive in the ever growing battle between ios and Android is less likely. Microsoft already have a partnership with  Nokia and rumor suggest  that Microsoft is in talks to buy Nokia's smart phone division. It is sure that Microsoft would not want to jeopardize that because of RIM. Having Nokia at your side is much better for business than RIM

IBM

IBM can be a potential buyer with a market cap of $200 billion. There is no problem for IBM to pay for RIM, either in stocks or a combination of cash and stocks. Being both a software and hardware company, IBM's culture should be much more compatible with RIM than any other potential acquirers. More importantly, IBM can acquire RIM for its strong bonds with enterprises, and forget about the continuous competition with Apple and Google in the consumer market, a loosing proposition so far. This acquisition will surely give RIM a lifeline in the ever growing smart phone industry, and solidify IBM's entries in IT departments of almost all large corporations. Finally, IBM have the chance to reclaim its leadership in enterprise communcation software over Microsoft's Exchange by integrating  RIM and providing a viable mobile platform for enterprises on both client and server sides.

RIM did same mistake as of Nokia did it with Symbian platform. Delaying of QNX platform is further adding to its miseries. IBM is getting more and more out of hardware and wants to stick more with services and that is where they made  their turnaround.  IBM will find the hardware and the patents circus interesting and worthy enough to get into.