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RIM May Split into Two

What do you do when your company has sales in the toilet, struggling to innovate, and losing throngs of customers to biggest, faster companies? Why, you panic and do whatever it takes. RIM, or Research In Motion, is doing just that. They’ve hired experts to come in and examine ways the company can stay alive in one form or another.

Their first tactic may be to license all their propriety technology to anyone who will pay for it. There is even word that RIM management is attempting to be bought out by Amazon or Facebook. However, that may not be possible as RIM’s messaging service, BBM, has fallen behind Apple’s iMessage and Google’s Gtalk. On the infrastructure front, RIM can’t compete with Verizon and AT&T’s cloud storage capabilities which are finally turning a profit on those services.

If that doesn’t work, RIM has hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital to help them find a paradigm shift. It may result in splitting the company into two separate pieces to help shelter RIM’s looming debt and falling stock value. The two pieces would consist of a hand set maker and messaging service. Whatever the company will do, it needs to do it soon. Analysts at Morgan Stanley are predicting that RIM will miss all its marks. RIM’s CEO, Thorsten Heins, made claims that the company will bounce back and bring value to stakeholders.  But with their stock down 32% this year, I’m skeptical.