BlackBerry May Soon Be Bankrupt

[vijayninel]

BlackBerry Ltd (formerly RIM) warned on Friday it expects to report a huge quarterly operating loss of close to $1 Billion next week and that it will cut 40% of its global workforce, rekindling fears of the company's demise and sending its shares into a tailspin.

A large part of the expected $930 million to $1000 million loss is being attributed to to a ballooning stockpile of unsold BlackBerry Z10 devices. Blackberry had expected the Z10 to be a huge success and produced a large number of them. Now these are sitting and gathering dust in warehouses like Microsofts Surfaces. Blackberry could possibly dispose off these in a discount firesale but is refusing to do so fearing loss of face.

The company, also said that job cuts were in the offing. It soon plans to shed 4,500 jobs. BlackBerry has already undergone a major round of job cuts over the last year. It employed 12,700 people as of March, and once had close to 20,000 employees. The remaining 8000 odd jobs are not too secure either and many more could soon lose their jobs.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, once Canada's premier technology company was a global leader in Smartphones and secure corporate communications. Today it is unable to compete with Apple's iPhone and Android based smarphones. Losses are mounting by the day and prospects of revival now look bleak.

Blackberry has now put itself on sale and is on the lookout for prospective buyers. The company could be sold off as a whole or in pieces to different buyers. In the worst case senario that no buyer is found, Blackberry could declare bankruptcy and close down sometime in 2014.

[ChironX]

Not unexpected since RIM has been out of the game for quite some time. The only reason it was selling phones was because of the encryption in its mail and BBM. Now that others have caught up to it, RIM really has no answer. It hasn't evolved, and now stares at the possibility of a buyout by another company or vanish.

Sad.

[The Knight]

Hope it will not happen with Nokia too.

[aftabali297]

Apple should buy out Blackberry.

[rdst_1]

The Newkia CEO should buy it. At least then he will have a better name for his company.

4

[aman360elite]

Most probably Google will buy it.Apple will not associate itself with RIM

[kundalus]

They have lot of patents in their name. My sure if BB goes on sale there will be many takers. As they already have a huge loyal customer base and existing distribution network. Patents will play a major role and any company acquiring BB will have an upper hand. I won't be surprised to see a cartel of Android players running to take it over.

4

[vijayninel]

Originally Posted by ChironX Not unexpected since RIM has been out of the game for quite some time. The only reason it was selling phones was because of the encryption in its mail and BBM. Now that others have caught up to it, RIM really has no answer. It hasn't evolved, and now stares at the possibility of a buyout by another company or vanish. Sad.

There is no RIM - RIM was renamed Blackberry sometime back. BTW BBM is coming to iOS and Android today. This will help them give a bigger user base to potential buyers, but it also takes away an exclusive from Blackberry phones.

Originally Posted by kundalus They have lot of patents in their name. My sure if BB goes on sale there will be many takers. As they already have a huge loyal customer base and existing distribution network. Patents will play a major role and any company acquiring BB will have an upper hand. I won't be surprised to see a cartel of Android players running to take it over.

It is not a question of if it goes on sale. It has been publicly announced that they are on sale since August BlackBerry is officially for sale, but will it find a buyer? | Mobile - CNET News

The problem is that no one is coming to buy it -as yet.

[kartikoli]

Newkia can go for it and develop android on these devices. Blackberry with android will give them good platform and name

[csunit37]

Originally Posted by vijayninel BTW BBM is coming to iOS and Android today

BTW blackberry paused the BBM rollout for both android and IOS following leak.

There were too many simultaneous users, the company says; with over 1.1 million active clients in the first eight hours, the messaging service just wasn't ready to handle the load. There's no mention of when the BBM deployment will continue, although BlackBerry is disabling the unofficial Android build to prevent future problems. Unless you grabbed BBM's iOS version in the first several hours, you'll just have to be patient.

Also there are many fake BBM apps on the playstore right now.

[vijayninel]

Originally Posted by csunit37

Yes I didnt quite get all the hullabaloo about the leaked app and all that stuff. I wonder if there is some truth in the conspiracy theories.

[vijayninel]

One of BlackBerry’s co-founders has held talks with private equity firms about making a joint bid for the struggling Canadian smartphone maker, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

BlackBerry co-founder in talks about joint bid: WSJ report - Livemint

[realandR3cys]

This is what happens when you face real competitions.
I've been a BB hater since it's starting days.

Overpriced products, almost dead App World, no innovation...
Once they ruled the American markets, and now, going to get bankrupt.
Pity.

They should have put the company on sale way before they even started developing the Playbook, which was a epic failure.

[csunit37]

Originally Posted by realandR3cys They should have put the company on sale way before they even started developing the Playbook, which was a epic failure.

Oh btw a new all touch C-series BlackBerry 10 smartphone has surfaced. Unannounced yet the device has a 4.2-inch LCD display with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 CPU.

[vijayninel]

Originally Posted by realandR3cys They should have put the company on sale way before they even started developing the Playbook, which was a epic failure.

Well, the Blackberry CEO thinks that tablets are a fad and wont be here in 5 years ... BlackBerry CEO Questions Future of Tablets - Bloomberg

So a failed Playbook wouldn't matter that much.