“BlackBerry’s board announces it’s open to selling the company”
Their was talk last week about taking them back to a private company.
$1B loss coming next week and 40% staff cuts… YIKES!!!
this is going to be big news around here… the Kitchener - Waterloo area is like an hour from me and they stand to lose thousands of good paying jobs… it will have a huge impact on their regional economy.
They’re releasing/released BBM apps for Android/iPhone w0000
It unofficially hit the Play Market, then was pulled
that was quick
the fuck is an insurance company gonna do with them?
they’re just going to re-org in private and then operate until they can turn a solid multiple from a sale or another IPO if they do well.
in hindsight it makes perfect sense the order of things this week.
Farifax would have made the offer conditional on BB taking the write-down first so that Fairfax could buy at the price after the stock takes the resulting hit. In fact, they could have pushed the write-down into future quarters but bringing it forward and realizing it now makes it this deal faster and more attractive.
Same thing with the lay-offs. Let BB be accountable for the lay-offs and take the reputational-hit instead of Fairfax coming in and announcing the lay-offs later on. It also compounds the hit to the stock price making it even better for Fairfax.
This has been in the works for sometime with the Fairfax board members resigning from the board months ago citing conflict of interest.
Google / Motorola setting up in Waterloo to possible tap into laid off BB workers:
Motorola Canada’s engineering director, Derek Phillips, said he has “big plans” for the area and is “optimistic” about finding the right mobile tech talent. He stopped short of saying he wants BB workers specifically, instead pointing to other sources of brainpower like the University of Waterloo
YUP!!!
these guys are going to be back.
this is exactly the phone i need and i’ve had a number of conversations with people in the same boat who keep their BB9900 waiting for this new phone.
Don’t worry, they’ll spend more on marketing than development. 
they went through U2 and Alicia Keys… maybe Pharrell will be next or Drake even… brand ambassadors do so much for blackberry
Drake?
“Stated at the bottom, then back to the bottom, now we’re here!”
it will still take 10 minutes to reboot
i miss fbrendan
heads up on this… i have had the Blackberry Q20 / Classic for a couple weeks now.
only flaw thus far is that my screen has stopped working twice (just the gesture part) but i’m getting another on warranty.
Other than that i am exceptionally happy with the phone and it actually makes me appreciate the Q10 more even though i didnt like it at first.
the classic comes pre-loaded with the amazon app store but it isnt as good as google play and many of the apps don’t work 100% due to screen size. that said, i am using a few of the google apps and are more than usable.
the BB Hub isn’t perfect for my usage pattern but it does work well. finally a BB with a good camera too. the browser is faster than the 9900 but still gets hung up for a couple seconds on here.
The Passport is apparently a super-phone but the form factor just bugged me out. when they put the passport hardware in a Classic but maybe 15% smaller and then beef it up by Porsche Design that’ll be my baby.
no games and i have maybe watched ooohhhh… 1 youtube video… no need for that shizz
The conversation i’ve had a couple times still though is that the 9900 is still a tough product to beat (middle phone, middle pic). It’s like having an air-cooled porsche or just an analog, agile, light manual transmission sports car where all the new iphone, galaxy stuff is a new BMW / Merc with way too much stuff stuffed into it.
There is a time and a place for both. I really feel like the 9900 form factor with the Classic internals / camera / BB10.3 would be great but the market wants bigger with more ‘things’.
the BB Link, Blend and ID stuff is all great… it does take a few hours to pull everything over but after having done it a few times anyways i really appreciate the layers of security and functionality
@Spam16v recently joined the BB crew :lol:
I’m betting you launch this one into a wall as well the second the screen stops working again…
i almost did twice at the rogers store the other day…
but i didnt.
because sometimes i adult.