BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

BlackBerry Ltd headed for breakup as smartphone assets called essentially worthless | Financial Post

BlackBerry Ltd.’s withering smartphone business means potential acquirers will pick over its more alluring assets, including software and patents, which together may be worth about US$5 billion, roughly in line with the company’s current market value.

Unfortunately for BlackBerry, the company has learned that, except in rare cases, technology companies are lucky to launch more than one hit product that leads to perpetual revenue and long-term profits. Read more.
The phone unit, BlackBerry’s biggest source of revenue, is essentially worthless because most buyers would shut it down in favor of their own technology, at a cost of as much as US$800 million, said analysts at Raymond James Ltd. and BMO Capital Markets. Its patents, software and a secure network are each worth more than US$1 billion, the analysts said, and the company has about US$2.8 billion in cash.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company appointed board members last week to analyze a sale or new partnerships to try to turn the company around. The value of the hardware unit may plummet further as customers shy from buying a device whose future is up in the air, leading acquirers to gravitate to BlackBerry’s other assets, Brian Huen, managing partner at Red Sky Capital Management, said by phone on Aug. 19.

“You’re effectively killing that business by saying ‘I’m up for sale,’” said Huen, whose Toronto-based firm manages about $220 million in assets including BlackBerry shares. “Nobody is interested in buying the entire entity. I think they are now in the phase of saying, ‘We will do anything to maximize value, including breaking up the company.’”

Source: business.financialpost.com

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

It's really the only sensible thing.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

I can't wait for the bidding war. Some of BB's assets are worth more than book value, or were.

Usually around this time you see conflicting stories, but none of that going on now. It may be the death knell.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Sadly, they are toast. Conventional wisdom is that in order to get any value for a buyer(s) the company will need to be broken apart as nobody wants the handset division.

In order to show maximum value to any potential buyer operating expenses will be cut to the bone (ie more layoffs) which means any major development will probably be put on hold and they will enter a sustaining mode until this all shakes out.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Bad management has killed other companies and this companies management did a good job at killing blackberry also.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Would be interesting do know how many enterprises are proceeding with their BES 10 deployments or holding on it until this plays out.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

we are moving completely away from BES and BlackBerry altogether. It became official last week.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Have you decided what you are going to move to?

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

We are moving to iPhone. Although I am a fan of Android personally, iOS is a much more standardized OS with one manufacturer which will make upgrading devices in the future much smoother. Too many flavors of Android, that and each manufacturer puts their own UI on top of Android, settings are labeled differently, etc.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Yeah, that's a massive factor, and I would definitely do the same. Are you using a MDM?

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Yeah, we were looking at a few. We are a Novell shop, so it limits what we can do in this aspect. NotifyMDM we tried for a while. Novell just released their own MDM solution which is almost identical to Notify. Don't have any interest at going with BlackBerry's solution seeing as we don't know how the company is doing. We have selected Meraki MDM, which was recently purchased by Cisco. We have recently implemented a Meraki WiFi solution as well. I am a fan of their Cloud Controller.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

I am trying to get some Cisco to send me some Meraki gear to test. It's very similar to the Xirrus equipment I engineer and sell. I didn't know they had made their own MDM though. Xirrus has APIs to tie in to AirWatch.

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Are they the same Xirrus who makes the WiFi Inspector?

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

Register for a Meraki webinar. They are offering a free AP if you attend one of their webinars.

http://meraki.cisco.com/freeap

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

I tried the other week, but they never confirmed my registration, and I'm a partner. :?

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

What a disappointment! after year of loyalty to the brand and the hardware. Is RIM electing to let the ship sink rather than adopting the Android OS?Shame on RIM for letting all its BB users down.

I recently upgraded to the Z10 believing it would be a positive move. it now appears many application developers will not wright code for any of the 10 . OS series phones. I can do more with my older 4G Torch than with the Z10.

So, will RIM work up an update or patch to bring the 10.0 OS closer to the Andriod platform? or will current BB users be forced into switiching to Apple or native Android devices?

RIM better think this one through before pulling the plug...:x

Re: BlackBerry Ltd. headed for Breakup?
 

What are you babbling about. No one said "pulling the plug". Adopting Android? Why bother. plenty of Androids out there already.