Amazon looked into acquiring Research in Motion this summer before being rebuffed by the struggling Canadian smartphone maker, which "prefers to fix its problems on its own," according to an exclusive report from Reuters.
RIM "has turned down takeover overtures" from the online retail giant and other potential suitors, the news agency reported Tuesday, citing "people with knowledge of the situation."
The BlackBerry maker's board is pushing management to focus on making better products, look for commercial partnerships with companies like Amazon, and possibly restructuring, the sources said, but "an outright sale or joint venture is not on the cards for now." One Reuters source said the board instructed co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie last week to "set aside any options for a sale."
"Until you stabilize the platform, people are going to be very nervous about spending $10 billion or more," one of the agency's sources was quoted as saying. Another source form an investment bank told Reuters that RIM has "had approaches from folks who have wanted to have discussions ... [t]he issue is it is hard to find a value that makes sense with a falling knife."
But another Reuters source, identified only as a U.S.-based RIM investor, said the company "was now essentially on the block."
"This story puts RIM in play, because shareholders are going to put it in play," the source said. "It's over. This is now a company where the activists are in charge."
Influential RIM shareholders like Jaguar Financial have recently pressured management to broker a sale of the company or else to break it up and sell it off in parts.