Perfect fit

The buzz is that Microsoft is buying RIM, maker of the BlackBerry mobile device.

I think this makes perfect sense. Blackberry is ubiquitous, practical, and ugly. The development platform is terrible – if you were there for DOS, the Blackberry will seem eerily familiar. The operating system crashes regularly. Wonderful error messages like: "Null pointer exception" and "VM: too many threads" are common.

Ugly though it may be, it is very popular (heck, I have one). Microsoft has to have this. Their mobile platform is dead in the water, and this is where the market is expanding. I suspect that Microsoft was waiting for RIM's recent patent difficulties to blow over – the last thing a convicted criminal organization needs to do is buy more trouble.

So there will be a marriage, and many children. Sometimes ugly parents produce beautiful children. Just not usually.