Gavin O'Malley, Jun 29, 2012, 12:26 PM
Could Their Be a Microsoft, RIM Alliance? Reuters

Will Microsoft get into the Blackberry business? Crazy as it sounds, such a scenario could come to pass as an increasingly desperate Research In Motion's reportedly considers various options, including bringing Microsoft into the fold.
 
“One of these options is for RIM to abandon its own operating system and adopt Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8,” Reuters reports, citing sources. “Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had approached RIM in recent months, looking to strike a partnership similar to the one the software giant has with Nokia Oyj, the sources said.”
 
In such a scenario, RIM could also look for Microsoft to buy a stake in the company and fund marketing and other expenses, sources tell Reuters.
 
“New RIM CEO Thorsten Heins reiterated yesterday (after the release of a disastrous earnings report) that he’s not interested in switching to any alternative OS, be it Windows Phone or Android," Forbes reports.
 
Indeed, such an “option is not attractive to RIM because it would mean the end of the Waterloo, Ontario-based company's technology independence,” Reuters writes.
 
Still, “I can’t imagine [Heins will] be as stubborn if RIM’s performance doesn’t improve,” VentureBeat notes. That said, what would Microsoft want with RIM’s business?
 
For one, “Microsoft could use RIM's deep carrier relationships to break free of a dependence on OEMs, and could mate RIM's enterprise infrastructure with its own, finally merging BlackBerry Server and Exchange the way IT managers have dreamed of doing for years,” PCMag suggests. “Of course, Microsoft may also be saving up to buy Nokia.”
 
Bigger picture, as The Verge lays it out, there’s a “lot of rumor and innuendo to keep track of, so the short version is this: RIM is likely considering several very dire solutions to what is obviously a very dire situation.”
 

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  • Gavin O'Malley, Jun 29, 2012, 12:38 PM
  • Google: Chrome's Quite The Cash Cow CNET Think Chrome is just another one of Google’s geeky side-projects? Think again. As Chrome head Sundar Pichai tells CNet, the Web (and now mobile) browser has become very lucrative for the search giant. Technically speaking, you could say that search is still Google’s moneymaker. But it’s more nuanced that that, as Chrome’s success shows. For one, “Inlike with searches that come in from Safari or Firefox, Chrome searches are more profitable,” CNet notes. “That's because Google doesn't have to share a portion of search revenue through what's called TAC, or traffic acquisition costs.”
     

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  • Gmail Is Conquering The U.S. TechCrunch In other Google fun-facts, the sprawling corporation said this week that Gmail now has 425 million users. Boosting those numbers, the Web mail service has been adopted by government agencies in 45 states, along with 66 of the top 100 U.S. universities. From its annual I/O developer conference, this week, Google also announced that over 5 million businesses have now “gone Google.” According to Google, this includes a number of large companies, including Roche, KLM and others.
     

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  • Facebook Tests 'Want' Button Inside Facebook It’s a well-trodden rumor, but Facebook is reportedly testing a new “Want” button plugin, which would mirror its popular “Like” button, but appeal more to the company’s ecommerce ambitions. Developer Tom Waddington from Cut Out + Keep apparently discovered that a Want button has been added to the Facebook Javascript SDK as an XFBML tag -- <fb:wants>. “The button is not publicly listed among the other social plugins on Facebook’s developer site,” Inside Facebook notes.
     

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