This article questions the move but Samsung is one hell of a conglomerate that already sell over 50 different phones over 4-5 OS's. The Blackberry brand is still very valuable, the BBM and QNX/BBX tech both seem like non-terrible investments and yeah it does diversify their options should Googarola start to get favored.

I've always said RIM should have switched to Android keeping the Blackberry brand with a strong BBM based UI layer. I still think they should but maybe they need to totally hit rock bottom and have someone like Samsung step in and make the burning platform decision.

If it's about intellectual property, it's possible. Otherwise, what possible synergies could exist between RIM and Samsung?