BlackBerry For Sale
Aug 14, 2013, by admin
BlackBerry once the global leader in smartphone technology, has put itself up for sale after years of falling sales and failed revamps.
On Monday, the company announced it had formed a special committee to explore “strategic alternatives” for itself. The company specifically said that it’s trying to “enhance value and increase scale in order to accelerateBlackBerry 10 deployment.” However, BlackBerry noted in the release that alternatives could range from joint ventures to partnerships to a sale of its operation to another firm.
So who might be interested in buying the once-mighty BlackBerry?
The fall of BlackBerry was of rise of iPhone and Android mobiles According to IDC, BlackBerry’s worldwide smartphone market share in the second quarter was 2.9 percent, compared with 4.9 percent during the same period in 2012.
While clearly Apple and Android have been the primary beneficiaries of BlackBerry’s losses over the past few years, the company is also facing competition from Microsoft and its Windows Phone 8 software, which is slowly gaining momentum.
In fact, in the first quarter of 2013, Windows Phones shipments surpassed Blackberry.
Who can buy ?
Now the question is who can buy buy BlackBerry ?
Possible strategic tie-ups with companies, such as HTC or Microsoft, have been batted around. But the truth is that these companies don’t really need BlackBerry’s hardware. And it’s difficult to evaluate the value of the software, which would likely be used in bits and pieces.
Samsung may be interested in BlackBerry to help it boost its own internal operating system. Samsung has been developing an operating system called Tizen, which it plans to use as a low-cost OS that can be used to help combat low-cost device makers in emerging markets.
It’s also likely that BlackBerry’s assets could be split among several buyers. For example, the company has many mobile patents that could be attractive to a number of players. And the company’s messaging platform and enterprise server service business could also appeal to some buyers.
