RIM: what is it worth? Perhaps the answer is zero. Conversely, Research In Motion, currently trading at $10 a share, could only be considered under valued under one of three scenarios. Scenario one: a sale. None of the technology industry suitors who could fund such a deal (RIM has an enterprise value of about $3bn) makes sense. Microsoft and Google have already joined hands with Nokia and Motorola Mobility, respectively. Samsung is doing perfectly well on its own. A purely financial buyer might be interested in the service revenues which RIM's nearly 80m subscribers generate. They amount to about $5 month per subscriber, or $4bn last year, at gross margins of 80 per cent or so. Surely this is a business that could be run for cash? But RIM has admitted that subscriber growth has ground to a halt because of high "churn" (customer losses) in the US, where the service fees are highest. So that service revenue stream is about to start declining, and can only be propped up by investing in, rather than by gutting, the business. Scenario two: a partnership or licensing agreement. Perhaps a technology giant interested in entering the mobile arena would licence Blackberry's new operating system. But if anything is certain about mobile computing, it is that OS's need scale. The best-case is that RIM fights for third place - behind Apple and Android - with an infinitely rich and dead-determined Microsoft, whose own new OS is getting good reviews. Scenario three (amazingly, the most likely one): RIM cuts costs, releases great new products, and starts to make money again. The proposition here is that a lossmaking company suffering rapid operational decline in a viciously competitive industry returns to sustained profitability by selling an unproven technology. Any takers? Do I even hear $10?