RIM Chalks Up Another Acquisition

Research in Motion has announced a deal to buy Chalk Media and its Chalk Mobile dashboard content delivery platform.

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has announced a deal to buy Chalk Media, along with the company’s Chalk Mobile dashboard mobile content delivery platform in a deal worth about $18 million. As part of the arrangement, RIM will float Chalk $2 million to take care of operational expenses until the deal does through.

Chalk Mobile enables content providers—like businesses and enterprises—to put together “pushcasts” of text, graphics, audio, and even video, that get pushed out to the organization’s BlackBerry-using customer or user base. Pushcast creators can encrypt the content and prevent it from being forwarded or copied by end users, as well as track how the pushcasts are used.

The Chalk Media acquisition may point to RIM moving more aggressively into the content delivery service—an arena the company has traditionally left to mobile operators carrying its devices.

Chalk’s board has approved RIM’s takeover offer; the companies expect the deal to close in February 2009.