RIM spends $100 million—possibly (hopefully) to be more like Apple

Research in Motion announced Friday that it has agreed to buy Irish developer NewBay for a reported $100 million. The 200-employee firm creates software for mobile phones that allows users to upload and share pictures and videos, as well as automatically update their social networks. We dare say that it appears the Waterloo-based company may have finally realized that entertainment and social interaction sell phones. The company’s previous acquisitions this year—Montreal-based Tungle, Waterloo’s tinyHippos and Seattle-based Gist—stuck to the “business first” motto often cited as the reason behind RIM’s downfall. If the company is targeting more casual users, the change can’t come soon enough. Last month, comScore data revealed that the 16-gig iPhone 4 is the most popular phone in Canada, with 763,000 users, beating out the 421,000 patriots who favour the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Read the entire story [National Post] »