I think their only chance to be relevant would be to get our of the hardware business and rush to be a service company. They should start making Blackberry Enterprise Server integration for Android. They should see if they could get Apple to let the iPhone hook in too.

Their phones are a lost cause. Even if they had an amazing phone in the pipeline, I don't think they could stop their slide if it was released tomorrow.

At this point, BES and their patents are the things with any value.

Spot on. People loved their CrackBerries because of the messaging services (and maybe the keyboards), not the tired phone software. iOS and Android devices dominate the enterprise now, but RIM could retain a server-side position BES. IT departments might like a single enterprising message service that can they can standardize across the variety of Android and iOS devices they will have to support.

Can someone enlighten me as to what advantage BES holds over the way iOS and Android communicate?

I agree that several years ago, when phone having an IP address was unheard of, BES made all the sense in the world. It's kind of pointless now.

Remember when people were screaming at Apple to get out the hardware game in 1997?

It is just as hard to see how you coukd build a long term sustainable company based on BES though. In the end selling it to Microsoft would seem the only sane outcome, so it can be part of a Windows offering.

Way too late. RIM has very little in the pipeline and still seems determined to try and make the PlayBook work.

Rumors are that they're shopping the company around but asking too much.