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

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) has a great customer following and a nearly unbeatable lead in the mobile email market with its BlackBerry product line. Still, the competition is lining up to steal market share (most notably, Microsoft). With RIM reporting Q3 results today, how will the wireless handset and email addiction company perform?

Analyst estimates peg the handset maker's EPS at $0.62, and the company will most likely hit that number (Think not? Sound off in comments). Still, market pundits worry that the huge slowdown and massive losses in the financial sector due to subprime mortgage woes may stunt demand for RIM's ubiquitous portable email devices. Although that may be true, will the impact be that large? Unless massive layoffs occur in the financial industry, all those BlackBerries will still be humming with incoming emails.

Still, RIM's stock gain ride of 12% in the prior three months before December have now been offset a little by a decline of 6.5% in the last four weeks on worries of a sales slowdown as referenced above. Still, for the Q3 period, the company is set to beat expectations of $1.65 billion in revenue and $0.62 in earnings per share. And compared to the year-ago quarter figures of $835 million in revenue and $0.31 earnings per share, that's not bad for YoY gains.

When Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) hit the scene a few years ago, not that many people were interested in accessing work and personal email on the go from a handheld device. But, the company changed the paradigm of wireless email by allowing customers to be instantly notified of incoming email messages regardless of where they were: on the subway, on vacation (ehh), or even in a meeting.

Since then, companies have realized that when it comes to wireless communications, one of the killer apps (if not the killer app) may not be voice calls, but email wireless access without the need to lug a laptop everywhere. RIM has thus captured the hearts and minds of millions of customers with its BlackBerry products (often called "CrackBerry" since they cause portable email addiction). It has released a multitude of cellphone/email handsets for every major U.S. wireless carrier recently, and has even shifted away from just business customers to consumer-targeted devices with cameras and MP3 playing capability onboard. What can RIM do for a second act? Try to sell products directly to consumers instead of relying entirely on wireless company sales?

RIM has recently partnered with U.S. cellphone retail outlet Wireless Giant to open a small store in a Detroit suburb in what could be the start to what Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has done, and done well: sell products directly from retail stores. However, signaling to wireless companies that you're willing to bypass them and sell directly to consumers can sometimes inflame executive egos. Wireless carriers depend on those long-term contracts to actually make money, you see. But, in this case, RIM will be selling its phones -- many models, to be exact -- to work with networks such as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. That ought to cause any apprehension to disperse from the wireless telecom companies. At least, for now.

In the latest stab into the belly of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has said that its Google Calendar product can now synchronize with Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM)'s BlackBerry products. With the BlackBerry being the portable email device of choice for millions in the U.S., the ability to bypass Microsoft's over-the-air calendar syncing (available on newer Windows Mobile competitive devices) is yet another way Google is teaming with partners to make the software giant less relevant in an on-demand and internet-connected customer world.

Although the media and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) have pushed the iPhone as a consumer device, apparently some business users are finding out that they like it too. Staunch business customers who are tech-savvy, complain about the lack of email flexibility that the iPhone provides, citing Microsoft Exchange and RIM BlackBerry Server functionality being absent. To some business customers who need mobility in the first place, though, the device is still easier to use than a Windows Mobile device or a BlackBerry.

SAP, the German computer software giant, allows the use the iPhone for business, even letting employees to work on their iPhones outside the office. Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) is another company that sees the usefulness of the combination iPod/cellphone as a business tool, regardless of how it's always been marketed -- as a consumer device. So, the large question is this: could Apple's iPhone eat into the huge portable email and web browsing market share Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) now has with its BlackBerry device line?

When a senior executive from SAP states that "It's fun ... it's so popular," one has to wonder if teenage peer-pressure vernacular and groupthink carries over from Apple's marketing overlords into the business world. After all, Apple is more successful at marketing than anything -- and that's what's responsible for its huge success in recent years. Business users, however, demand logic and ROI, not marketing fluff. The iPhone is the real deal, combining both functionality and marketing. With a real web browser and forthcoming applications, it could indeed become a business tool of choice. Once the iPhone becomes compatible with RIM or Microsoft corporate email systems, watch for sales to become even hotter. Don't think Apple doesn't have this functionality waiting in the wings once a 3G iPhone arrives next year.

For the last 24 hours or so, rumors in the air that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) may be looking to place a bid for Research In Motion, Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) has been floating to the top of the M&A bowl. It's easy to note that rumors about RIM happen every week, but what makes this one so different? Many, many things. Microsoft's recent attention to making its Windows Mobile platform entrenched into the market for handheld Smartphones continues to indicate how highly the company places mobile technology in its future growth strategy.

By now, it's pretty obvious that companies like Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Microsoft and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) all believe that the future of the internet is in the mobile customer's hands. Yes, we'll always have wireless-enabled laptop computers, but for those growing masses who want the office in their pocket, small Smartphones and like devices are just now beginning to see widespread popularity. It will blossom into a huge market from here.

Unless the price is just too high, Microsoft's acquisition of the best-known name in mobile computing would allow it to gain a very loyal customer base almost instantly, but the company could not just dump RIM's exclusive software and email "push" capability in favor of its own. Both RIM and Microsoft now have systems to automatically push received email to customers in the mobile field in real-time. They are direct competitors.

By buying its largest competitor in this space, Microsoft would own the market for Smartphone-based applications and push email, ahead of European-based Symbian. Microsoft's only problem : RIM's market cap is nearly $47 billion. But with rumors fueling Google's entry into the wireless space in full force soon, Microsoft may again be forced to act in the endless arm wrestling with the internet search giant.

Are you an email addict? That's a hard term to describe for many, but with so much business and inter-company (and personal) communications coming in and going out in the form of email these days, there are probably millions -- tens of millions -- of email addicts in the U.S. alone. The thing is, they don't even know it.

Email is a nice way to communicate since it does not put people on the spot like a phone call or a meeting does. We can respond at our leisure, and we can read and compose at our leisure too. But, I've seen countless folks who have some kind of personal "time limit" on responding to an email, as if there is some hidden challenge or something. That's one of the signs of email addiction.

Another sign? The RIM Blackberry and Palm Treo. Business users advocate that these devices make them more productive since they can conduct email business anywhere they are. This is true and these devices are true time-savers in every respect. What happens, though, is that email never, ever leaves you -- and that's a bad, bad thing in my opinion. There is time for business and time for not being interrupted. Yet, with email on our hip 24/7, are we creating a nation of email addicts? That's still up for debate. But can you hit the "delete" key on your email lifestyle, if just for a short while?

When wireless giant Samsung recently introduced the Samsung BlackJack to Cingular Wireless customers here in the U.S., Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ:RIMM) decided that the design and the name of the BlackJack was just a little to close to its venerable BlackBerry brand name. The result was, of course, a lawsuit against the wireless handset maker, who is the third-largest manufacturer of cellphones in the world behind Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK) and Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT).

RIM's lawsuit talked about name infringement -- BlackBerry vs. BlackJack -- but also about the fact that the design of the Samsung BlackJack looked pretty similar to certain models of the BlackBerry. Although the terms of the settlement this week are being kept confidential between RIM and Samsung, apparently both companies are pleased with the result.

One thing is certain in this case -- Samsung will continue to sell the BlackJack under that name and RIM will, of course, continue to sell the RIM BlackBerry under that name. We can only guess here that the settlement was completely monetary since no names are being changed -- because, after all, that was the basis of the lawsuit.

After reading gobs and gobs of information over the last few days on the Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AApl) iPhone (which has captured my attention like much of the press), I can't help but be awed by what that company has done. Not, not in terms of technology nor customer friendliness -- although those are apparent like with anything Apple does -- but by the impact this device may have on both the mobile phone manufacturing segment as well as the mobile phone carrier business.

After all, only Cingular Wireless, which is soon to be AT&T, Inc. (NYSE:T), will get this phone during the "exclusivity" period. Will carriers like Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S), Alltel Corporation (NYSE:AT), and T-Mobile suffer? From many accounts, they will. I'm not sure how to estimate the wireless customers who will "jump ship" to Cingular just to buy the iPhone, but it won't be small at all most likely.

With the recent release of the Motorola Q, does Motorola and Microsoft have a winning combination here to take on the Treo and RIM Blackberry world? The Q is the first QWERTY-based device using the Windows Mobile platform released exclusively on Verizon Wireless. Our friends over at Engadget recently put the Q to the hands-on test shortly after it was released by Motorola/Verizon just about a month ago. How does it stack up? More importantly, what does this signal for both Microsoft and Motorola share prices? TheFlyOnTheWall's blog takes a look.

It's pretty easy to see that Microsoft wants its presence in the mobile computing world to grow as fast as it can. And, by some counts, it's doing just that. The Symbian mobile operating system has had a long lead in the space but may lose ground to Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, as the newest version 5 has some incredible functionality built-in. With the desktop Windows Vista operating system being delayed (seemingly forever), Microsoft needs a few home runs in order to fill in the gaps.

Can strategies like Windows Mobile and the Xbox 360 be enough? They better be. Gaming is so popular now that it's hard for the world's largest computer software maker not to be in the space. Mobile phones outumber personal computers by a huge margin -- so it makes sense for old Softie to be playing in that sandbox.

Can Microsoft's possible domination of these two burgeoning markets help it regain some lost ground and also help it to recover from a disastrous share price (that's undeserved, in my opinion)?