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Although Research in Motion (RIM) has more than held its own in the smartphone market, it's been plagued by the fact that both the iPhone and Android phones have better browsing experiences. In what looks to be a move to become more competitive in mobile browsing, RIM has acquired Torch Mobile, which has the Iris mobile browser, for an undisclosed sum. As CNet notes, Torch Mobile relies on the open source WebKit engine for mobile browsing, and this acquisition looks to be a smart move from RIM. Microsoft may also want to pay attention.

Both Google's Chrome browser and the iPhone browser rely on WebKit, among many other browsers that do, including the Palm Pre's. WebKit has, in fact, become one of the most influential of all open source platforms because of its ubiquity in browsers, and its flexibility. In addition to WebKit, some reports are coming in saying that RIM intends to include full Flash and Silverlight support in a new browser slated for 2010. These moves could make a big difference for the company in the mobile browser competition.?

Is innovation in browsers where it should be? We've reported before on how most of the innovation is going on in open source browsers, as Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to lose market share. This week, at two separate conferences, officials from Google and Mozilla have weighed in on how browsers need to improve. Notably, they primarily agree, and their focus doesn't seem matched by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.

According to Mike Arrington at TechCrunch, several sources say that the Mozilla-based social browser, Flock, will soon shed its Mozilla code base and start using Google's Chrome framework for future releases.

Flock's CEO, Shawn Hardin, responded to Arrington's post, saying that the browser's upcoming 2.1 release is being developed, and will be released with, its traditional Mozilla underpinnings. Hardin does not explicitly say that Flock will move to Chrome, only that the browser space has been heating up rapidly in the last few months, and that the Flock development team will continue to make architectural decisions that balance what's best for our users and what's best for Flock as a business.