Bad news for BlackBerry lovers – as if there has been any good news lately. With sales slowing and usage numbers dropping, the board of directors of the Waterloo, Ontario, wireless company has decided to form a special committee to pursue opportunities to sell the company or pursue other options to stay in business. What does this mean for the average smartphone user? Read on for more details.
BlackBerry has been doing a lot of reinventing lately to stay competitive with Apple and Google in the smartphone market, including unveiling new devices and rolling out an entirely new operating system. BlackBerry has considered selling itself before in order to stay afloat. In May 2012, the company conducted a strategic review but never courted any serious buyers. BlackBerry once had a marketshare of over half of all internet-capable phones; today, their marketshare is less than 3%.
The patent portfolio of BlackBerry is worth roughly $2 billion alone, and as intellectual property battles heat up among tech companies, this could prove to be a very valuable asset indeed. How long BlackBerry smartphones will remain on the market is anyone’s guess, but it remains possible that a company like Microsoft or Samsung would be interested in collaborating with or purchasing outright the Canadian firm.
