Is Vodafone Secretly Gearing Up To Acquire Research in Motion (RIM)?

Acquisition market is fabulously creating impact on the industry and companies are open-hearted to welcome any new firm which can get then few extra bucks. If we believe on latest speculation, Vodafone is secretly in talks with troubled Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) for any possible tie up – most probably the acquisition.

Shares of RIM have started soaring after such rumors. According to WSJ, Vodafone is taking a deep look of battled smartphone and Tablet maker Research in Motion. In last couple of weeks, RIM also gained enough attention with speculations of hiring an investment banker to consider options for the company.

And, it makes much sense for RIM as company is constantly loosing grounds against Apple, Google, Microsoft and many others for last few years. Despite of making various efforts and new OS, RIM has been failed to entice smartphone users. Market share has plunged to 16% in 2010 compare to 16.6% in 2008. That too at the time smartphone industry is going through major revolution and maximum number of mobile users are migrating from traditional phone to smartphone.

Last 2 years remained very dramatic for RIM as company witnessed many ups and downs. After beaten in OS market by Apple and Google, RIM finally bought QNX – a smartphone OS company – in June 2010 at $200 million with expectations to witness surge in sales. RIM also missed the bus of app market as they launched its app store only in 2009 much after Apple and Google launched their own.

However, the corporate industry still respects RIM because of its Blackberry services which provide enhanced data security in form of encryption, ease of keyboard and an image of a phone for professionals.

So far, none of the companies have released any official statement over such development. However, it will be interesting to see if other companies (i.e HTC ) joins the race only to fuel the fire.