The current executive team running Research in Motion is apparently looking to sell off some of its side companies that it recently acquired in a bid to keep the lights running. The Blackberry phone and OS maker has suffered from users defecting to Android and iOS devices and it recently announced that Blackberry 10 smartphones would not launch until the first quarter of 2013. It also announced it would lay off 5,000 team members before the end of 2013.
Today, Reuters reports, via unnamed sources, that as part of a strategic review, RIM is looking into letting go of several of its properties. One that could be under the chopping block is NewBay, which RIM bought for $100 million in October 2011. NewBay had made a cloud-based video and photo sharing service and at the time, some financial analysts questioned why RIM was getting into the cloud storage business.
That acquisition was made under the regime of RIM"s now former CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. Just a few months after the NewBay deal, both men left their CEO roles and the current head of RIM, Thorsten Heins, took over. While it remains to be seen if Heins can truly turn RIM around, he does seem confident, and recently was quoted as saying, "This company is not ignoring the world out there, nor is it in a death spiral."
Source: Reuters