Well this is interesting. According to a recent SEC filing and report by Business Insider, the information has come forth that it wasn't just HP who was looking at buying Palm, but also other big players including Apple, Google and Research in Motion. It's always fun to hypothesize on what big companies should do and who should buy who, and on many a CrackBerry Podcast we had the discussion as to whether or not RIM should buy Palm. Heck, back at WES 2009 I was on a panel discussion called Bloggers Predict the Future and i said then RIM would gobble them up Pac Man style (watch the video above... skip to 21 minutes for me).
So what do you think. Should RIM have bought Palm? Though I may have thought that in 2009, starting in early 2010 I went the other way in thinking. Though buying Palm would have got RIM a new operating system for the handheld and some solid IP (not to mention a presence and new remote base in California), it wouldn't have brought them an abundance of ready-made apps or momentum. On our BGR/Phonescoop podcast at WES 2010 we revisited this topic of what RIM should do. The BG crew shot down the idea of seeing a BlackBerry w/ Google Experience (aka Android) from happening pretty quick, though we know that's something a lot of members in the forums have longed for. We know BlackBerry 6 is still evolutionary - it's built upon the traditional BlackBerry platform. Knowing now that RIM looked at Palm gets me really excited for what we'll see beyond BlackBerry (BlackBerry 7 anyone?). With BlackBerry 6 locked down, you know RIM's best and brightest must be hard at work on their next big thing?
I wonder if BlackBerry 7 (what I like to think of by my madeup codename as "BlackBerry Juice") will break with tradition and be a brand new operating system experience altogether for BlackBerry vs. building on top of 6. RIM may not have have bought Palm, but they did buy a company a few months back called QNX that was in the automotive infotainment space, so maybe there's a story to that acquisition that has yet to be told. Back at WES 2010 I was in the middle of a few conversations (drinking involved) where the speculation was about that acqusition having nothing to do about getting BlackBerry into cars, but was about their OS kernel, tools and engineering talent which apparently all kick ass. Who knows. Time reveals all. But with BlackBerry 6 around the corner (and I'm sure even more good things coming up after that), my BlackBerry excitement levels are building yet again. Sound off in the comments with your predictions on this one!
Source: PreCentral
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