Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry, are reportedly considering splitting the company in half in order to overcome its on-going financial difficulties. According to the Sunday Times, the firm is thinking of selling off the Blackberry, hardware, side of the business and concentrating on its messaging platform.
Another option is to sell off the entire company to big tech firms such as Microsoft, although there is some speculation that Facebook or Amazon could be potential buyers. Rumours that Facebook are to bring out their own mobile phone have been circulating for a year now and this could represent the ideal opportunity for them.
Although it seems that RIM are keeping stum on the rumoured sell-off, one representative of the company told CNET that "RIM has hired advisors to help the company examine ways to leverage the Blackberry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives”.
RIM has been struggling to compete in a market dominated by Apple and Android for some time now and continue to report revenue loss each quarter. At the last developer conference it offered a $10,000 reward for devs who made apps for the struggling platform so it could compete. However, this doesn't seem to have made much of an impact on the developer community and the company continue to "quietly” lay off staff.
In Q4 of last year, RIM showed a 25% drop in revenue, representing a loss of around $125m and it's thought that the Q1 report will "post an operating loss” for Q1 also. Whilst it has made plenty of cutbacks aiming to save the company $1bn by the end of the fiscal year, this seems to be having little impact on the certainty of the firm's future.