Mobile is becoming too important too quickly and it seems that Microsoft is on the sidelines watching as Apple and Google take ownership of this market, a market neither was in 3 years ago. RIM and its Blackberry branded devices are still moving a lot of smartphones and people still love em but I’m not sure the economics will last long term. Apple will always have a wow experience on a small set of devices. It is what they do well and hard to think they will change that course. Android on the other hand has changed the economics completely and lots of big players are betting on Android today and its growing like crazy. Is Micorosoft’s only play here to try and buy RIM? The market cap on RIM today is about 36 billion, not a cheap ticket but if anyone could do it its MSFT who is sitting at around 245 billion in market cap with about 50 billion in current assets. I wonder if RIMM takes a stock hit in the next couple of years if MSFT swoops in as their shot at getting a quick strike back into the mobile game that they appear to be missing out on.

Another scenario is what if RIM moves themselves to Android and shares in search revenue with Google. That would be a huge risk and a huge move but it might be the right one for Blackberry. Android is open source so they could still build great devices with a highly integrated experience but could eliminate a lot of cost and potentially share in search revenue which could infuse a new stream into RIMMs income. It would be a “bold” move but it may be the right one as they look long term.

Something big will happen in mobile in the next 12 months from MSFT, RIMM, Nokia and others as they sit on the sideline and watch Google and Apple play in the superbowl of this decade, mobile!