From the 'stalking horse' files:

A month ago, bankrupt Canadian Telecom giant Nortel announced that it had entered into a 'stalking horse' agreement with Nokia-Siemens to sell off its wireless assets for $650 million. The stalking horse part means that others could emerge to bid for the assets - and that's what has happened.

The official auction of Nortel's wireless assets is set for today,with multiple bidders involved. In addition to Nokia-Siemens, MatlinPatterson ($725-million) and Ericsson ($730-million) are now bidding as well. RIM might be involved too with a bid as high as $1.1 billion as well.

The winner of the auction should be named later today or possibly tomorrow.

The way I see it, with all the noise that RIM has made, if they don't win, I'd bet that they will appeal the outcome to the courts and the Canadian Government as well.