With over $110 billion in cash, the Cupertino giant could theoretically buy three major rivals and still have change left to go shopping for a new handbag or two.

We know that’s not how it actually works, but it helps to put the size of Apple’s gargantuan amount of cash into some perspective.

Apple could (again, theoretically) pick up all of Amazon, Nokia and Research In Motion with its mountain of cash, looking at current market capitalizations.

Amazon.com = market cap of $86.6 billion
Nokia = market cap of $13.59 billion
Research In Motion = market cap of $6.85 billion

That totals roughly $107 billion, still $3 billion short of the cash Apple currently has on hand (its market cap is roughly $522 billion). How mind-blowing is that?

Wait a few days, and maybe they’ll be able to bail out Netflix while they’re at it, too.

Also read:

Apple announces dividend plans and $10 billion share buyback, will spend $45 billion in three years

Apple’s lesson: Domestic cash is nimble, foreign cash is expensive

Canadian phone and tablet manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) has – finally, one might add – started selling BlackBerry smartphones in Finland, which is obviously the birthplace of one of its fiercest rivals, Nokia.

Finnish media are reporting that RIM, which has had trouble regaining relevance in a world quickly getting overtaken by Apple, Android phone manufacturers and the Nokia/Microsoft alliance, believes it can sway business users.

It’s the first time Finns can purchase BlackBerry phones; Finland was the only European country that didn’t have them up for sale until now.

RIM announced last month that it had teamed up with mobile virtual network operator Cubio, but BlackBerrys are now ripe for the shipping.

Paul Lucier, who runs RIM’s operations in Northern Europe and Russia, told reporters that he’s well aware that BlackBerry will not become the primary smartphone vendor in Finland any time soon, but that the company felt the need to increase its presence and awareness of its phones in the country regardless.

We say it’s time for a quick poll. Who do you think has the best chance of success: beleaguered Nokia killing it in the United States and Canada, or fading star RIM becoming a top phone vendor in Finland?

Rockstar Consortium, an unusual partnership between the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Ericsson and Sony, has received the green light from the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) for the $4.5 billion acquisition of approximately 4,000 patent assets that were previously owned by Nortel Networks.

Back in July 2011, the acquisition had already been ok’d by US courts, and a month earlier by antitrust regulators.

Now, the US DoJ’s waiting period for review of the patents purchase has expired, which basically means the consortium is free to consummate the (expensive) acquisition. The partners jointly announced the news this morning.

You may recall how close Google came to purchasing those Nortel patents instead.

Earlier this year, the DoJ’s Antitrust Division announced the closing of its investigations into the acquisitions by Apple, Microsoft and RIM of the former Nortel Networks patents, as well as its investigations into Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and the acquisition by Apple of certain Novell patents.

Now that the green light has been received, Rockstar says it is set to “implement its plans to pursue licensing agreements with companies that are harnessing its intellectual property”. Sounds like fighting words to me.

Rockstar CEO John Veschi, formerly Chief IP Officer of Nortel, put it this way:

“We are pleased to emerge from this review process, and are looking forward to working with technology related companies to provide them with access to Rockstar’s technology.

The entire industry has benefitted from Nortel’s groundbreaking innovations, and we are eager to work with them to establish licenses enabling the continued use of this technology.”

Nortel, a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy back in January 2009. The patents and patent application are its last major asset, encompassing technologies such as wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, Internet, and semiconductors.

Here’s the full press release:

Rockstar Consortium Receives Green Light From Department of Justice

Consortium forges ahead with plans to license intellectual property

OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – March 12, 2012) – Rockstar Consortium (Rockstar) today announced that the US Department of Justice waiting period for review of Rockstar’s acquisition of a substantial majority of the former Nortel Networks patent portfolio, has expired and the company is free to consummate the acquisition. The portfolio consists of approximately 4,000 patent assets related to a broad array of networking, communications, and internet technologies.

These patent assets were a substantial component in the record-breaking auction this past summer, when Rockstar Consortium, made up of Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson and Sony, invested $4.5 billion to acquire Nortel’s portfolio from the bankruptcy estate. Nortel, a 100+ year-old telecom and networking pioneer, had developed the portfolio through tens of billions of dollars of R&D investment over the past few decades. Following the expiration of the waiting period, Rockstar is set to implement its plans to pursue licensing agreements with companies that are harnessing its intellectual property.

John Veschi, Chief Executive Officer of Rockstar, and formerly Chief IP Officer of Nortel, stated that, “We are pleased to emerge from this review process, and are looking forward to working with technology related companies to provide them with access to Rockstar’s technology. The entire industry has benefitted from Nortel’s groundbreaking innovations, and we are eager to work with them to establish licenses enabling the continued use of this technology.”

Rockstar

Rockstar Consortium US LP, and Rockstar Consortium Inc. (the Rockstar Companies) are jointly owned by Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson and Sony, and are chartered with managing the Rockstar portfolio on behalf of these owners.

RIM’s BlackBerry devices have long been seen as the mobile device for professionals which has kept the company somewhat competitive in the global mobile landscape. The ultimate professionals who have relied on a BlackBerry are members of the US Government workforce, which is a pretty solid user base to have for RIM. According to a report by Reuters, that cushion from the government is about to deflate.

The US Governement’s General Services Administration, which handles about $500B worth of government assets including telecom and IT, is starting to pilot a project allowing its 17,000 employees to use their own personal devices on its network. While RIM products account for nearly 95% of the devices used by its workforce, the ability to use your own device on a different platform will most certainly take a major cut out of BlackBerry usage.

The GSA’s chief information officer Casey Coleman had this to say about the shift:

We actively seek to be progressive in our adoption of new technologies so that we can learn the lessons which will inform our client and customer agencies as they seek to go down a similar path.

What Coleman means that if his particular agency sees success with its program, it could start being picked up by other parts of the federal government. If that were to happen, RIM would more than certainly lose a large percentage of users within the US Government.

Just last week we reported that massive enterprise company Haliburton started ditching RIM products and giving out Apple devices to its over 4k employees.

If RIM is losing professional clients such as ones from large government agencies, it better start coming up with a better plan to keep up with Apple, Google, and Microsoft in the fight for consumers.

Having announced official support for Android applications before it released its PlayBook tablet, RIM has started to detail the features that will be available when its compatibility layer goes live. If you were hoping for full-featured Android apps and services, think again.

Speaking at DroidCon, as part of the Eastern European Mobile Monday Developer Summit in Romania, RIM engineers explained that whilst the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps will support a number of Android apps on the BlackBerry OS and future QNX platform, many key features will be missing.

Thinq reports the following features won’t be supported:

Android’s famed battery-sucking Live Wallpaper, SIP and SIP VoIP, anything built using the Native Development Kit, apps containing only App Widgets, and apps containing more than one activity tied to the Launcher.

In addition, any packages which rely on Google Maps, in-app billing services, Android’s text-to-speech engine, or the cloud-to-device messaging system will all be rendered unusable under the company’s runtime system.

Whilst it can’t be expected that RIM would be able to fully support Android’s suite of features and development kits, the announcement that so many of them won’t make the jump across to the PlayBook will surely frustrate new and existing PlayBook owners who waited on the introduction Android apps to breathe new life into their tablet devices.