If RIM is sold who will continue their BIS network infrastructure in Africa?

Research in Motion, the company responsible for the BlackBerry handset range is having a bad year. Their share price has plummeted, sales of the PlayBook, which I'd hoped would be great, have not matched RIM's expectations and furthermore their focus on a business driven handset range has not met consumer demand head on.

Financial and Technology analysts have suggested a Microsoft or Dell Inc. take over. A smart move when one considers that there will be 77 million BlackBerry users by the end of the fiscal, a quarter of which business users.[Bloomberg] The takeover bid would be well timed, at present RIM is considered a bargain, due in part to its formidable enterprise architecture assets and that it is by no means short of cash.

In short Research In Motion's product range is going nowhere. However, unless Canadian Regulators halt a takeover bid, RIM's current service offering may change were it taken over by Microsoft.

I believe the BlackBerry Enterprise Service is safe. BlackBerry's enterprise grade email security is one of the features it most often boasts about, and if predictions are correct BlackBerry's corporate user base will hit the 20 million user mark shortly. Microsoft would pursue this opportunity aggressively, as they continue to lose ground in the consumer segment to Apple, for much the same reason I believe BlackBerry is losing market share to Apple - corporate employees are consumers, why should they have to use boring tech at work?

The BlackBerry Internet Service is not safe as it's a technological anachronism - a service which is purpose built to degrade the web, delivering compressed data to its handsets in a bid to win over price sensitive, but data hungry, consumers. The BIS, and BlackBerry Messaging service are very popular in emerging markets due primarily, I believe, because of the high data prices carriers are able to charge for data. If Microsoft were to take over BlackBerry I'm not sure it makes sense for them to continue maintaing BIS infrastructure.

As I'm from South Africa, the mere thought of a Microsoft run RIM phasing out the BIS and BBM services altogether has me wondering about the implications for telecommunications providers in Africa.

What would Vodacom, MTN and Cell C do if BlackBerry's BIS server infrastructure wasn't available a year from now? I have to assume, the BlackBerry Curve is perhaps the most popular handset in South Africa, and presume quite a number of those handsets were acquired on contract with a carrier.

Were the BIS infrastructure phased out, would any consumer want to keep their BlackBerry? Would the carriers have to honour BlackBerry contracts with their current subscriber base? Would they be forced to lease BIS like services from Microsoft? Would they consider dropping data rates? Unlikely, but perhaps they'd have no choice.