With the stock prices of thousands of public companies taking a very large nosedive in recent weeks, it stands to reason that some companies with little debt and who're also flush with cash may be seeking to turn on their acquisition engines and snap something up. With Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) down almost 90 points from its 52-week high set just this summer, could the email addict support company be ripe for a buyout? Who would want to gain RIM's immense cellphone/email subscriber base that seems to keep outperforming larger competitors? Think Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT).

The company just said that it is experiencing higher costs due to the launch of newer smartphones (like the Storm), and if you take that with the pounding the overall market has taken, RIMM could be left as a willing acquisition to the company that failed to snatch up Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) earlier this year. Microsoft's Windows Mobile is a venerable mobile operating system but does not have the core business email user base of the cachet of the Blackberry. At the $60 per share level, RIM would be a $34 billion takeover, which is still quite large for Microsoft to swallow. Is RIM worth it? You decide.

Microsoft would seem to have a more logical fit with an RIM acquisition (in its entirely) than by gobbling up Yahoo and having so much overlap in the process. If the future really is mobile (for computing, communications, etc.), Microsoft's potential acquisition of RIM would be years ahead of its time and possibly even a bargain if one were to look at the broadband and wireless landscape circa 2015. It's got the cash, and it's got the moxie. Whether it has the will to try another huge acquisition in 2008 is anyone's guess