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RIM flogs family silver
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Troubled mobile phone outfit RIM has started flogging the family silver as it tries to make ends meet.
According to Reuters the company is selling cloud services provider NewBay and some of the other minor assets it recently acquired, as part of a strategic review process. NewBay makes photo, video, and social-networking tools for smartphones and computers. RIM bought the company in October 2011 for $100 million, as it tried to come up with a new strategy to stem its steady decline.
At the time the acquisition of NewBay in Dublin, Ireland, was a heralded as a glorious plan to help RIM alter its course and boost service revenue by having carriers use its services for messaging, content delivery and analytics on all smartphones. When RIM bought the company, NewBay had more than 80 million subscribers who used it to deliver content to mobile phones, personal computers and tablets.
RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins has decided to bet the farm on a new line-up of devices that run on RIM's new BB10 operating system, in the first-quarter of 2013.