According to Mr. Blair, the company's network operating center, which provides RIM's vaunted encryption, has lost its allure, as enterprise and government customers increasingly accept the more limited security offered by the iPhone and Android devices.
This race is about "who can enable and inspire more of its youth to help build broad societal prosperity," argues Dov Seidman, the author of "How" and C.E.O. of LRN, which has an operating center in India.
To reduce long-distance costs, China Unicom, the country's second-largest telecommunications provider, will open a network operating center in Guangdong Province that will allow the company to avoid paying other carriers for use of their phone networks.
In a season already filled with some unusual twists, the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel — a 390-room facility with throwback jerseys of Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the gift shop and a steakhouse that bears Vince Lombardi's name — became the Giants' operating center.
Ehud Gelblum, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note — entitled "No Happy Ending in Sight" — on Wednesday that he did not believe RIM was seeking to sell itself as a whole, but may consider outsourcing its network operating center or selling off parts.
RIM's value can generally be broken down into four areas: its hardware business; its vast network operating center, which processes the e-mails at the heart of its business; its messaging services; and its trove of smartphone and e-mail patents.
