Earlier in the week we heard rumor that RIM is considering moving Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie out of co-Chairmen position to be replaced by Barbara Stymiest. Jefferies & Co.’s analyst, Peter Misek, gives this rumor further credence in that it will actually happen for RIM to save itself. In his checks, he goes on to even suggest RIM is considering the possibility of licensing the BlackBerry 10 OS to others. Misek says:
“We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets).”
This could be a possible game changer to battle the Android OS and to possibly pull in extra revenue from 3rd party manufacturers. Take this all with a grain of salt for now, but it would definitely make for an interesting stage in 2012. Do you think RIM should license BlackBerry 10 OS, or keep it to itself?