In a mobile world dominated by Apple and Google, with contenders Samsung, Windows and HTC bringing some tough competition, there hasn’t been much room for BlackBerry lately. Troubles with service where they managed to score a certain amount of popularity (such as in the UK) have been weakening their place on the market. A problem that they are now going to address, perhaps by selling the company.
While it is only one of the options available to them, it is starting to look like the most likely. A special committee, including BlackBerry chief exec Thorsten Heins, are gathering to discuss the future of the company.
Alternatives to selling the company over to unnamed buyers include making partnerships and alliances with other companies (a move becoming popular with other mobile giants), a joint venture, and other unknown strategies. There is no word on whether they have received offers for a buy-out.
Despite this news, a video has leaked today showing what is claimed to be the new BlackBerry Z30. The Vietnamese company that got a hold of the device showed a brand new design with a 1280 x 720 resolution, 5″ display. It runs on a dual-core QUALCOMM snapdragon S4 Pro processing chip, and has 2 GB RAM and a 16 GB hard drive.
Other features include two cameras, with 2 megapixels in the front and 8 megapixels in the rear. It also has a 2800 mAh battery and what appears to be a BlackBerry v 10.2 operating system.
In spite of this leak, Heins kept the topic on the Blackberry 10.
“We continue to see compelling long-term opportunities for BlackBerry 10, we have exceptional technology that customers are embracing, we have a strong balance sheet and we are pleased with the progress that has been made in our transition,” he said.
The continued decline of BlackBerry’s popularity has always been a real shame to me. Somehow the company has managed to stay away from a lot of the privacy concerns and third-party app issues of Apple, and holds more safety features than Google’s Android. They used to be one of the main trinity of mobile devices, but have fallen so far behind in recent years that they are barely on the map.
With Samsung gaining so much traction with their Galaxy line, and Firefox launching their own $80 open source smartphone, the competition is getting harder than ever to crack. While it isn’t a certain future, the sale of the company is looking pretty likely at this point.
Source: Washington Post
