John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

RIM Buys NewBay for $100 Million

Another acquisition for Research In Motion. The BlackBerry maker is buying NewBay Software, a provider of white-label cloud-based content services. RIM confirmed to AllThingsD that it has signed an agreement to acquire the company, but declined to provide any further details. Sources close to RIM, however, say the purchase price was about $100 million.

The acquisition is an interesting move for RIM. Though the company did not reveal the thinking behind the deal, it’s clear that NewBay’s cloud-based media management service — which allows users to store and share pictures, videos and whatnot — will likely become the foundation of future cloud-based BlackBerry content services. NewBay’s flagship LifeCache software is widely used by carriers like T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, AT&T and Verizon, so the building blocks are there already. That said, as RBC analyst Mike Abramsky notes, RIM is a bit late to the game here.

“RIM is coming later to market than competitive offerings (may take another 6-12 months to be fully integrated) vs. Apple’s iCloud, Amazon’s Cloud Drive and related services, and Google cloud apps,” he explains. “It’s not known yet whether RIM’s offering will match or lag the content and user experience of competitors.”

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