Now RIM is pressing a strategy to focus on IT and partner for the consumer side, but that's a losing bet. Think of the likely partners--the best consumer company is Apple and it has a phone. Second is Samsung, which also has a phone, followed by HTC (it has a phone) and LG (it has a phone) and on down the line. In short, outside of retailers like Amazon and carriers, there are few options for consumer-side partners outside of Nintendo (even Sony has a phone), and doing a gaming pure play with Nintendo would likely kill the IT side.

On the IT side, with systems management RIM would go head to head with IBM, Dell, HP and a host of companies with deeper roots into IT than RIM has but no phones. So you would think that the more successful strategy would be to go to these companies, all of which have largely tried and failed with smartphones and tablets, and partner with them for IT while handling the consumer segment yourself because partners there just don't exist.

Amazon, with a set of services that largely match or exceed Apple's, may be the lone exception, and it doesn't have a phone. Amazon is also the largest online retailer in the world, so a partnership there might be doable.

But in the end, if RIM tries to partner on consumer and drive IT, it will be swimming upstream. Given how weak the company already is, that likely won't end well.