Last year when BlackBerry put itself up for sale there were rumors that Chinese companies were interested in picking up the beleaguered Canadian smartphone manufacturer. Lenovo’s name popped up in multiple reports, and even though the Chinese giant picked up Motorola Mobility instead, a few weeks back we heard once again that perhaps Lenovo was looking to make a move on BlackBerry. The company’s CEO John Chen has said that any deals with Chinese companies are unlikely to go through owing to security concerns.
It goes without saying that BlackBerry has lost a lot of ground in the consumer smartphone market, but it still happens to be the go-to device for many companies and corporations, not to mention governments and intelligence agencies. It has the highest clearance of any OEM from the U.S. Department of Defense, which speaks volumes about the trust Western governments place in BlackBerry smartphones.
Any bids for BlackBerry would have to go through regulatory approvals in these Western countries, the so-called “Five Eyes countries” which happen to share intelligence among them. They happen to be one of BlackBerry’s biggest install bases, says Chen, which is why there will be a lot of “regulatory issues and concerns” regarding any such deal.
BlackBerry was actively looking for a buyer last year, its not anymore. Rumors of a bid from Lenovo increased when Chen met with executives from Xiaomi and Lenovo over the summer but nothing materialized. The company has gone through a painful restructuring process and is back on growth footing. its new flagship, the Passport, has performed well even exceeding BlackBerry’s own expectations.
Clearly there’s some fight left in this company, which dominated the global market less than a decade ago.
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