BlackBerry has spent the past two years insisting that, despite all the Wall Street speculation and all the signs to the contrary, it would not need to sell itself. Since taking over as CEO, Thorsten Heins has insisted that, while he might look for alliances or to offload certain assets, the core company would return to sustainable independence based on Black Berry 10. Sales of the new platform have certainly not justified that claim, or caused Google a single sleepless night, and now even the most optimistic BlackBerry watchers are resigned to the sale of the iconic Canadian company ‘ possibly in what will amount to a fire sale.
As always, though, the question is who will want BlackBerry? BB10 itself, and the handsets, are likely to be the smallest attraction these days. They would bring an acquirer some neat technology, especially on the OS side ‘ the operating system’s heritage would be an asset for any firm chasing the connected car market. But taking on an increasingly niche platform with dwindling market share will not be attractive to anyone ‘ except, according to some pundits, Microsoft.
We might assume that, having taken control of the other ‘third OS’ (alternative to Android and iOS), with its Nokia purchase, the Windows giant would steer clear of complicating its devices and services strategy further. According to The Wall Street Journal, BlackBerry is now looking for a ‘fast auction process’ to sell or break up the firm as early as November (before its value falls even further, presumably), but that would put an awful lot of M&A work on Microsoft’s plate this fall.
Nonetheless, when the WSJ reported that BlackBerry had formed a committee of board members to “explore strategic alternatives”, Microsoft was said to be ‘keeping an eye’ on the Canadian company. Its main interest, though, would not be in BB10 ‘ it would hardly even be worth the effort to kill a rival to Windows Phone, since BlackBerry has been doing that itself. Instead, like most potential bidders, it will eye the smaller company’s enterprise and government customer base and its back end software, particularly its increasingly multiplatform and cloud-based mobile management software, and of course its messaging expertise. These could enhance the enterprise business which, for all the headlines that the devices and services unit generates, remains the real engine of Microsoft.
Other enterprise players, like the increasingly mobile-focused Oracle and IBM, might also emerge as bidders, though in all cases, it would be likely that BB10 would be separated or even allowed to die.
One by one, possible candidates for the device business have claimed to have dropped out of the game ‘ Lenovo earlier this year, and now Huawei, which said, in the wake of the Microsoft/Nokia deal, that it will not look to snap up either BlackBerry or HTC. SVP Chen Lifang told reporters this week that it would rely on organic growth to expand its smartphone share.