I agree but keep in mind "us" Being mac rumors don't represent the majority and are a small minority. I was 4 when the super bowl commercial aired.
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BlackBerry Receives Takeover Bid Worth $4.7 Billion or $9/Share
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I agree but keep in mind "us" Being mac rumors don't represent the majority and are a small minority. I was 4 when the super bowl commercial aired.
They aren't going to have $3/share in cash in a couple of quarters. There is no cash infusion with this buyout. Part of that cash is going to go into cleaning up after and pay for the massive downsizing.
This is also going to spook off lots of phone buyers until they finialize the transaction and come up with a crystal clear plan for the future. If there is a sequence of couter-offers and/or law suits blocking the transaction this quarter's drop is going to look tame. While they are drifting more folks are going to at best withhold the buying new stuff and at worse walk away.
[ There is a six week time limit but seems likely someone is going to piss around here trying to muck with the stock price. (e.g., the Dell deal that took 'forever' to close. ) ]
Could not agree more.
What makes Blackberries attractive to employers is that, because they are so limited in capability, they get used almost exclusively for business. They are horrible to use.
My company allows iPads to connect to its network, but not iPhones due to security concerns. I cannot for the life of me understand that position, but BB's probable demise just speeds the day that they'll let me use my iPhone for work email, which will be a happy day.
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How many of those users also have an iPhone? [Hand raise]
For an actual company no. To become a bigger patent troll yep.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/13/2796243/us-approves-nortel-patent-sale-microsoft-apple-RIM
I think you are forgetting about the Nortel patent portfolio.
I've never understood why that hocus-pocus reasoning gets past any reasonable scrutiny. Some cash can't be spent ( offshore etc .... it is trapped and only be spent on certain thing). Some cash is needed to operate the business profitable. Have to buy parts before can assemble and sell them into a larger system/device. (sure you could borrow all of that but then the bankers have you by the short hairs... Your business isn't their priority. ). Frankly "stuff happens" (recalls, support problems , etc.) some of that is self-insurance funds.
None of that really can be used to "pay back" the buyout costs without sucking the life out of the business. Vampire/Vulture Capitalists out to gut the company... sure. Actually out to get the company back up on its feet and succeed long term... the money largely has same positive purposes for being there now as it did before. Probably even more so in these buyout contexts.
Finally as pointed out in another post, most of these buyouts do damage to the company. Especially if they become protracted length process.
what for? iOS users don't know any BBM users. Android users want to have nothing to do with BBM users. The only ones that care are microsoft phone users because that's one more app to add to their list of 10.
Fairfax ain't no dummies, but I think Prem Watsa's investments have been too much of a reach lately. I think Fairfax's average cost was around $18/share before offering $9/share today.
They were terrible phones esp the torch and pearl. The 9700s and subsequent Bolds and BB10 devices are much better.
Lol are you referencing the article a while back that found a lot of people carried a Blackberry to get work done and had the iPhone "for show." The one that people said public perception caused them to "hide" their Blackberry use even though they used it more often and just had the iPhone to "impress clients" and "not look outdated."
So yeah, a lot probably have both for different reasons. But if the iPhone could do it all and do it all well, why have both by choice?
Apple should bid for BB
BlackBerry has some great IP and does very well in the enterprise and automotive business. Apple should seriously consider and take a hard look at bidding for the business. I see a lot of great synergy with both companies that could further bolster their IP in the mobile / automotive / software business and because the company has been down-sizing over the last couple of years (which will now have less then 8,000 people working for the company), incorporating such a business would not be hard.
BlackBerry has some great IP and does very well in the enterprise and automotive business. Apple should seriously consider and take a hard look at bidding for the business. I see a lot of great synergy with both companies that could further bolster their IP in the mobile / automotive / software business and because the company has been down-sizing over the last couple of years (which will now have less then 8,000 people working for the company), incorporating such a business would not be hard.
Agreed. I remember reading a story about Laziridis. Years ago he was really fixated on the Blackberrys long battery life and showed off his latest device to phone company execs. They were supposedly annoyed because that meant they would sell fewer backup chargers. Even though the browsers were crap and the keyboards sometimes flimsy I think Steve Jobs would appreciate improving something to the point that it pissed off the phone companies.
At one time it was inconceivable that Nokia and Research in Motion would someday crumble. I hope the folks at Apple never forget this. Never assume anything and don't take things for granted.
actually the other way round.
BlackBerry is already the much better OS than Android (webgl out of the box, flash support, better battery life, gesture controlled not '3 types of stupid buttons' based - I've a HTC One and love it but against the Z10 its a joke productivity and performance wise for what it packs hw wise), BlackBerrys problem is the hillarious price for the specs they offer. The Z10 is basically a Galaxy S3 but was launched in GS4 days at GS4 prices which is not only hillarious but totally arrogant and ignorant towards the market.
Gaming performance wise though the Z10 can easily beat the GS3 for example because BlackBerry actually cares about support and optimization (they are slow but their drivers are not remotely as crappy as those of Samsung and HTC which totally crush what the respective hardware in the flag ship devices could do)
I would hate to see BB10 going away as it is, aside of WP8, the only mobile OS that really gives a crap about productive business use.
Android requires two dozen hacks and custom overrides to get there and iOS simply force-prevents anyone from getting the related features.
BlackBerry HUB for example is a concept that is not remotely matched by anyone (WP8 communication hub is the thing closest to it)
I at the time put my hope into Sailfish OS from jolla to be what BB10 could have been productivity and gesture control wise, that it spreads, as I don't see Tizen to fill this spot, its too poised by Android and iOS approaches to be of use.
Apple didn't come back from the dead in the same line of business. Yes, they revitalized the Mac line and made it relevant ageing, but the real financial success was caused by creating two entirely new lines of business (iPod and iPhone). I don't see that happening with Blackberry or Nokia (Microsoft)
The phrase "geared towards professionals and business users" doesn't really have any meaning in the modern smartphone world. Most smartphones (Android or iOS) are capable of fulfilling a business' needs. In a sense, all modern smartphones are geared towards professionals, as well as being geared towards consumers.
Yeah it's definitely weird to see them go so far downhill, especially if you've been following the industry for a long time.
BlackBerry was one of the truly innovative companies back in the very beginnings of the smartphone industry. But the management sat on their asses for too long and were too proud of the company's past that it missed out on the a massive sea change (iPhone).
I just finished writing wayyyyy too many words about this over here, if you're interested: http://turtlepie.org/post/2013/9/convergence-confidence
Blackberry and Nokia were kings of the smartphone before the first iPhone. They utterly dropped the ball being so slow to respond to the nuclear bomb that Apple detonated.
Google and its partners knew they had to copy, clone, copy and clone the iPhone as fast as the possibly could and prospered.
Blackberry was always rubbish, though - only for stuffed suits and chavs.
Google and its partners knew they had to copy, clone, copy and clone the iPhone as fast as the possibly could and prospered.
Blackberry was always rubbish, though - only for stuffed suits and chavs.
I owned Palm devices for many years. When they came out with NVFS, their OS became CRAP. My first bad device turned out to be my Palm TX. It wiped itself several times and I became an expert on backup. Later I got a Treo 650 and loved it... for a while... until I started really trying to use it as something other than a dumb phone with a PDA in the same box. The browser was crap. The connection speed was crap. And email was nonexistent. I got a 755p, hoping it would be better. It was so bad I wound up selling it at a loss and living out the rest of my "sentence" on Verizon with a BB 8830.
The BB browser was doo doo. The BB email client was doo doo. The OS was doo doo and I found myself resetting my phone every few days to recover from "0 filefree." But email worked and worked well (if you didn't mind reading email in the smartphone equivalent of Pine).
I resisted going over to At&t because Verizon was going to get the iPhone any day now. While I liked my BB for email, I missed having a real browser and I began to realize that BB no longer had the only mobile solution that worked. I grew tired of waiting and just before Verizon finally got the iPhone, I took my line to At&t. The rest of the family stayed on Verizon with their feature phones for another whole year.
Nowadays are four of us are on At&t with iPhones. When I think back on my BB experience, the only positive memory I had was email. Oh, yes. And Nintai. Somebody came up with a game that made you glad you had a trackball. It was great. Until the trackball became gummed up.
I got so adept at cleaning my trackball, I'd have it apart in the car in traffic and put it back together before the light changed.
BB eventually came out with trackpads and that awful thing they called the Storm. By then they had hit the iceberg and water was rushing in. Today's announcement is the gurgling noise you hear as they slip beneath the waves. I hope whoever buys them spins QNX back off as its own company. They don't deserve to go the way of the Dodo, ahem I mean Blackberry.
The BB browser was doo doo. The BB email client was doo doo. The OS was doo doo and I found myself resetting my phone every few days to recover from "0 filefree." But email worked and worked well (if you didn't mind reading email in the smartphone equivalent of Pine).
I resisted going over to At&t because Verizon was going to get the iPhone any day now. While I liked my BB for email, I missed having a real browser and I began to realize that BB no longer had the only mobile solution that worked. I grew tired of waiting and just before Verizon finally got the iPhone, I took my line to At&t. The rest of the family stayed on Verizon with their feature phones for another whole year.
Nowadays are four of us are on At&t with iPhones. When I think back on my BB experience, the only positive memory I had was email. Oh, yes. And Nintai. Somebody came up with a game that made you glad you had a trackball. It was great. Until the trackball became gummed up.
I got so adept at cleaning my trackball, I'd have it apart in the car in traffic and put it back together before the light changed.
BB eventually came out with trackpads and that awful thing they called the Storm. By then they had hit the iceberg and water was rushing in. Today's announcement is the gurgling noise you hear as they slip beneath the waves. I hope whoever buys them spins QNX back off as its own company. They don't deserve to go the way of the Dodo, ahem I mean Blackberry.
Here we go, the "Apple was first with anything to do with a smartphone & everyone else copied" routine
First they were failing of handling the launch of cross platform BBM last weekend. Couldn't be any worse because it was barely released a couple of hours and be taken down again.
Then come this news it's for sale at $9 per share
If you want a way out, at least do it with honorable last effort. Yet Blackberry failed to do so. Shameful death indeed.
Then come this news it's for sale at $9 per share
If you want a way out, at least do it with honorable last effort. Yet Blackberry failed to do so. Shameful death indeed.
I actually quite like the Z1. Its a good size (4.2"), looks nice. Its just the lack of apps available. If i knew i could get one synced up with itunes easily and i could get all the apps i want, id go for one. Yes, they missed the boat when the iphone came along, but id say they could've helped themselves by making it ridiculously easy for users to switch. Not doing that is a double c)ck up and they must have the brains within the company to make it super open source and available to be used by ex windows/iphone/android users on Pc/mac platforms. Thats the only way they can play catch up.