With the same of Nokia to Microsoft, the world lost one of the original smartphone makers to what some would call natural wastage. Failing to keep up with the times and a lack of recognition of new competitors left Nokia on its knees, and as if one mega phone maker all but dying wasn’t enough, it seems the writing is on the wall for another.
It’s no secret that BlackBerry, or RIM as we still (wrongly) tend to call it, is struggling. A less than stellar response to the BlackBerry 10 line of phones has left the Canadian firm in dire straits. Previously the king of the enterprise, BlackBerry has seen its lunch devoured by the likes of Samsung and Apple, and it never really seemed to react, other than to change management structure. Now though, that management team appears to be accelerating the search for a buyer for BlackBerry, which follows on nicely with a previous report of a potential BlackBerry buyout.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, BlackBerry’s leaders are "aiming to run a fast auction process," which believe it or not could see BlackBerry absorbed into another company as early as November. As far as corporate buyouts go, that’s pretty snappy.
BlackBerry has already narrowed down its list of potential buyers, and the sale process is expected to begin in earnest sooner rather than later.
Quite who would be willing to rescue BlackBerry is an interesting question. Depending on the price, we suspect a few candidates would pop up, if only to get hold of BlackBerry’s assets rather than its long term projects. Still, we can only hope that there is a bright future in store for whatever BlackBerry ends up turning into, if indeed it does stay around rather than simply becoming one with another large technology company. After all, that didn’t work out too well for ether Palm or HP now, did it?
With Nokia moving into Microsoft and BlackBerry on the verge of being assimilated by another company, the options for smartphone buyers really are dwindling. Chin up though, there’s a new iPhone being announced in a few days!
(Source: WSJ)
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