BlackBerry Ltd's effort to find a buyer has failed, leaving the company to attempt a hastily arranged restructuring that raises even more questions for the beleaguered smartphone maker.
The Canadian company said Monday it abandoned a tentative $4.7 billion plan to go private and instead will continue as a public company with new leadership and a $1 billion investment from a group led by major shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.
Earlier this month, BlackBerry wrote an open letter to its customers in which it told them that they could continue to count on the company, despite its well-documented struggles in recent weeks, months and years. But BlackBerry is not out of the woods yet, whatever its brave face may lead you to believe.
In September, the company announced that it had accepted a $4.7bn deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings, but it has not yet been finalised. Some have suggested that Fairfax may be struggling to raise capital from other investors.
We’ve got some exciting news for BlackBerry 10 customers out there— today your favorite smartphone is getting even better with the release of BlackBerry 10.2 OS, which will available for download starting this week.
The plight of BlackBerry has gotten so bad that heavy satire has stepped in.
In one example, a website recommends "how to upgrade your BlackBerry Smartphone to Android 4.2."
BlackBerry's troubles aren't limited to North America and Europe. Those in the developing world, which once embraced the fruit-themed devices, are also shifting away from the once-proud phone maker.
According to its latest 6-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, BlackBerry described how the "intense competition" from the wider smartphone circle is impacting the company's finances, and that much of the decline it saw in the U.S. market is "now being experienced globally."
In the end, BlackBerry's leadership may have been its own worst enemy.
The struggling handset maker suffered from infighting at its executive level that hobbled its ability to compete in the mobile market and led to its eventual downfall, according to an investigation conducted by the The Globe and Mail newspaper.
The man behind the consortium offering to buy out BlackBerry and take it private offered some insight into the deal on Wednesday.
Fairfax Financial Holdings CEO Prem Watsa told Reuters that he believes the consortium will be able to come up with the money needed to pay for the $4.7 billion bid.
The group trying to buy BlackBerry for $4.7 billion could break up the company, wiping out its smartphone division while preserving BlackBerry's secure network services used by large enterprises globally. But one analyst said he hopes that's not the case.
"I don't believe that breaking up the company is the right way to go," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates. "I believe there's more value in keeping the three parts -- devices, services and collaboration -- intact, which works better for longer term value."
t’s no secret that BlackBerry has been falling faster and faster over the last year. Despite the name change (from Research in Motion to BlackBerry) and some decent handsets, the company just can’t stop losing money.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported that BlackBerry is preparing to cut up to 40 percent of its workforce before the end of the year. The company only has about a 3 percent market share in the United States. This news comes the same day that the company announced the new Z30 handset.
Amid rumors of layoffs and a possible sale of the company, BlackBerry today announced some good news: its growing BBM instant messaging service will be available for Android and iPhone devices in the next several days.
BBM is one of the high points of the failing BlackBerry legacy business, with recent growth in BBM users mainly in Europe and Asia. Until now, BBM has only been available for BlackBerry devices.
