According to IrishTimes.com, Research In Motion has acquired Ireland-based digital content company NewBay for $100 million:

NewBay staff were informed of the company's purchase by the Blackberry maker yesterday. It is understood that RIM intends to keep NewBay's software development centre in Dublin, which employs about 200 staff. It will be the first facility for the Canadian firm in Ireland. NewBay develops software for use on mobile phones which enables users to create and share digital content such as pictures and videos, as well as updating social networks.

It signed deals for its software with a number of major networks including T-Mobile USA, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica O2, France Telecom Orange, US Cellular, ATT, Telstra and Verizon.

I'm sure we'll learn more about the intent behind this acqusition at the BlackBerry DevCon coming up in less than two weeks. RIM has made a number of acquisitions in recent years, including QNX, T.A.T. and Torch Mobile. QNX has given BlackBerry a new platform upon which to build it's OS. TAT has given RIM ea design talent on the user interface side of things, and Torch has greatly improved the BlackBerry web browser (to the point where people don't even complain about it anymore!). With NewBay, it looks like RIM is filling a gap they have on the distribution of digital content. Awesome.

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