I’ve had 24 hours or so to absorb all the news that came out of BlackBerry’s quarterly earnings statement yesterday. And it seems to me that BlackBerry might be positioning itself for a sale. Why do I feel that way? Here’s my logic. There are two key points in my mind:
- With the move to not make its own hardware anymore, BlackBerry is pretty stripped down. They have a pile of patents, QNX which is used in a lot of places including car infotainment systems, BBM which was spun off as a separate entity last month, and their global infrastructure. Nothing is really left that would be a drag on earnings. At least in theory. Thus making all of this valuable in whole or in parts to the right buyer.
- Something that most people missed yesterday is the fact that BlackBerry has a new CFO. Steven Capelli is the guy in question and he brings 25 years of executive experience in the software and technology industry with a strong track record for driving profitable growth and increased operational efficiencies across business and corporate functions. The thing is, he’s never been a CFO which is kind of weird. He also has worked at Pyramid Technology Corporation and Sybase which means he’s buddies with CEO John Chen who has worked with both companies. But the key thing is that both Pyramid and Sybase were eventually bought by other companies while both men were working for said companies. Thus one has to wonder if this is a case of history repeating itself.
While I do think that the short term goal is to get BlackBerry back to profitability, I think that BlackBerry CEO John Chen will not hesitate to pull the trigger on a sale of the company. It’s clear that he is aligning the company for that to be an option. The only question in my mind is when might that trigger be pulled.
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This entry was posted on September 29, 2016 at 10:46 am and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Opinion: BlackBerry Is Getting Ready To Sell Itself
I’ve had 24 hours or so to absorb all the news that came out of BlackBerry’s quarterly earnings statement yesterday. And it seems to me that BlackBerry might be positioning itself for a sale. Why do I feel that way? Here’s my logic. There are two key points in my mind:
While I do think that the short term goal is to get BlackBerry back to profitability, I think that BlackBerry CEO John Chen will not hesitate to pull the trigger on a sale of the company. It’s clear that he is aligning the company for that to be an option. The only question in my mind is when might that trigger be pulled.
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This entry was posted on September 29, 2016 at 10:46 am and is filed under Commentary with tags BlackBerry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.