Microsoft has never been one to get into the hardware business. The only exception being in the smaller computer periphery market with things like mice, keyboards and webcams; and of course the gaming market with the Xbox.

For anything else it has always concentrated on the software solutions to run on other peoples hardware products. This is especially true when it comes to the cell phone market where Windows Mobile is used on about 18 million devices currently.

Like winds of war though the wind can shift direction bringing with it many different types of opportunities and the current economic downturn could be bringing one such opportunity Microsoft’s way. According to a post over at electronista they are quoting Canaccord Adams financial expert Peter Misek as suggesting that Microsoft could have a standing offer to buy Research In Motion; makers of the Blackberry, if their stocks fall below the $50 range.

Now given the sliding stock market it is very conceivable that RIM’s current stock price of $60 could slide but it would have to slide all the way down to $40 in order for Microsoft’s bid to be considered as a premium offer.

As pointed out in an article on Reuters about the idea, Microsoft is facing increasing pressure even on the mobile software front with the success of the iPhone and Google’s Android making its way onto mobile phones from various vendors. Even so such a deal wouldn’t be without its pain either for Microsoft as pointed out by electronista in their post

Any deal would nonetheless create integration problems for Microsoft. RIM’s signature push e-mail system for BlackBerries provides much of the same functionality as the e-mail component of Microsoft’s Exchange system, supplying messages in near real time. A dependency on the BlackBerry system at many businesses would require Microsoft to either code the feature into Windows Mobile or else to continue running BlackBerry OS as a second mobile operating system.

This might be a fun idea to float around to give us something else to speculate about other than how far the market will drop but I somehow don’t see it happening. Microsoft has been far to resistant to getting into the heavy duty hardware business for all of its life and I just don’t see them going that route at this point.