Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Fighting for Its Second Chance: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc (GOOG)

Now, with a new partnership forged with another once-dominant smartphone maker, Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK) the company has decided that the target of opportunity is forcing BlackBerry out of the market. I honestly, don’t know if that can be done. But, maybe it can.

Look, Microsoft will never EVER be considered a ‘cool’ company. The image over there is more nerds in suits than cool guys having fun with technology. But Microsoft seems comfortable with that and the company has grown in solid ways that have rewarded investors and employes. God knows it has the muscle and cash to make things happen.

But not always with hardware. The Windows Phone is still in its true infancy and certainly the Zune crashed. Even the Surface tablet is only beginning to gain some velocity. Only in the Xbox game console has Microsoft really knocked it out of the part with a piece of hardware and that’s not even selling to their core business-user type.

So it’s down to BlackBerry and Microsoft/Nokia for third place in this next round of the smartphone competition. I’m going with a pick that surprised even me: I think BlackBerry will be able to pull it off and become a solid third in the market, passing Microsoft’s efforts to drive it out. The Z10 looks good (though it needs a better set of available apps to buy) and the response to the launch is positive. I think that, within two years, BlackBerry will leverage their old addicted users to become the top smartphone maker that’s not the big two. There are worse places for a firm that was given up for dead.

That makes BlackBerry a true investing opportunity in the smartphone and technology market. I wouldn’t put conservative money into it, mind you. However, any investment capital you have that isn’t exclusively devoted to generating income can be placed into BlackBerry. Whether it’s risky money or simply growth-and-income money, there are much worse places you could invest than Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY).

Good luck!

The article BlackBerry Fighting for Its Second Chance originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Nate Wooley.

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