back to article Cisco, Google and SAP may buy BlackBerry's bits: report

Not one but three tech titans are considering a bid for BlackBerry, according to Reuters. The news agency reports that BlackBerry may not be content with the arrangement to take it private suggested by major shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings and ”has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic …

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  1. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Oh God... A SAP phone...

    A SAP phone.

    Geezuz H. Can you imagine? The mind boggles...

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Oh God... A SAP phone...

      All the error messages will be a stream of indesipherable German.

      Seriously SAP + BB is a very bad idea.

      Cisco? More money than sense and with guarantee to insert NSA backdoors everywhere.

      Google? Along with Apple the most logical purchaser until... MS outbids them as it realises that buying Nokia was a mistake and they should have bought BB years earlier.

      We have seen huge mistakes like this before. Compaq made a mistake buying Tandem. They realised it soon and bought DEC. Tandem has withered on the vine since.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Coat

        Re: Oh God... A SAP phone...

        If somebody handed me a phone and then said "That's the one with the new SAP operating system", I would suddenly drop it and shy away like the phone was covered with Ebola virus....

        Icon is picture of me burning my clothes after I had the new SAP phone in my pockets!!

  2. John Sager

    QNX

    Cisco would probably want some control over that, since it's the base OS of their big routers.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: QNX

      Agreed. Cisco have got previously tried and failed to enter the consumer area, so I doubt they'd have any interest in the phone part of the business.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: QNX

        Google? That makes sense - they made a great success of buying Motorola and leveraging their patents against Microsoft, Apple and Nokia.

        Oh, wait.....

        1. Turtle

          If, At First, You Don't Succeed.

          "Google? That makes sense - they made a great success of buying Motorola and leveraging their patents against Microsoft, Apple and Nokia. Oh, wait....."

          If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: If, At First, You Don't Succeed.

            Yes har har but you're all ignoring one thing....Microsoft, Apple and RIM were the "Rockstar Consortium" that got the Nortel patents. Google didn't. But, acquire the stinking/smoking remains of RIM would checkmate the consortium's lawyers.

      2. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: QNX

        "Cisco have got previously tried and failed to enter the consumer area..."

        I have an iPhone. Yes, that one, but I mean the other one too.

        A Cisco-brand "iPhone".

        Cordless phone with Skype built-in.

  3. Mad Chaz

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/30/iphone_not_good_enough_for_real_techies/

    Guess someone at BB needs to read el'reg

  4. James 100

    Cisco need QNX, which is the obvious target for them, being the basis of the top-end IOS (not that one!) platform. Maybe the odd wireless patent or something relevant to their VPN offerings, too, but that's probably all.

    SAP - maybe the BES document handling? They're the odd one out in this list to me.

    Google ... mobile patents to use against MS/Apple in protecting Android, of course, and probably BBM: a good way to one-up Apple's iMessage and open things up, if they want to go that route.

    Apparently, BB owns 130 encryption patents they bought from Certicom 4 years ago, which presumably Cisco, Google and SAP would all have an interest in. The handsets, though? Hard to see anyone buying that up now: it's coming fourth in what is barely a three-horse race now, Android/iOS/WinPhone.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cisco might also want some of BB's functionality for unified comms

    I could see some of BB's network security and messaging technology being useful for Cisco.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some crazy ideas

    These companies shouldn't for one moment think that breaking up BlackBerry and getting a little bit of it is going to mean that they can more easily offer a secure mobile platform. Security comes as a result of the whole hardware and software combined. A firm getting just bits of their technology will discover that that's not enough to inherit BlackBerry's security accreditations.

    I fear that the money men will grab what they think is valuable, discard what they don't want, and then get told by their engineers that what they've bought is useless by itself. In that way a load of cash will be wasted and those who really want BlackBerry to continue more or less as is (and there are some quite important people for whom BB is essential) will end up with nothing.

    Furthermore there would then be no option in the smartphone market to avoid advertising and privacy invasion. All the alternatives (Apple, Google and MS) do scour all your email and content for their advertising purposes. More or less the whole point of BB's setup is that they can't do such things.

  7. JaitcH
    Unhappy

    Canada - going British - Can't sustain technology

    First Northern Telecom and now Blackberry/RIM. Kind of sad way to end for former technology leaders.

    Still there's Mitel and that outfit that makes those damnable 'secure keys' as well as Corel. They don't even make Newfy screech any more!

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. John Sanders

    Google and Cisco

    Cisco should buy the QNX part, as they use it on their high-end routers, and Cisco has the necessary deep pockets to maintaining such kind of development.

    Google should buy the Phone part and produce a nexus with a keyboard, decent battery life and a proper email application.

    A man can dream...

  10. Big_Ted

    The missing name

    You missed out Motorola, you have already had a story about Motorola looking to employ loads of ex BB engineers etc, it would make sence for them not Google to buy the phone patents plus possibly other technical parts, that would leave Google if they want to to buy up BBM etc to incorperate it into their Docs etc offerings, do this and then Android could be made into an intergrated system for business like BB has been up to now. That leaves QNX, most likely someone like Cisco would want that not only for itself but also for going into cars etc due to its security over other OS's, think about it QNX or Windows as the OS running your driverless car ? ? ?

  11. kmac499

    Fruit Based mergers

    Oh Please let Apple have a sniff..

    Hours of fun discussing the merits of Blackberry and Apple pie vs Blackberry and Apple Crumble..

  12. IHateWearingATie

    Mobility is a huge growth area for SAP

    I can see exactly why SAP are interested in parts of Blackberry - they are pushing hard to have SAP modules as the mobility software that are used in supply chain, field forces etc.

    I can imagine them using stuff from Blackberry to provide a more complete mobility offering, but I suspect a SAP phone isn't one of them!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Security is also about location ...

    However illusory that security may be, the moment Blackberry becomes owned by a US company, I ditch my Q10.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Security is also about location ...

      The NSA "pwns" the backbones of the Interweb-thingy.

  14. unlockworldwide

    The Corpse

    Hopefully the Coroner will release the body before it becomes a stinking mess, bleeding dollars and subscribers as each quarterly report passes.

    Whether the Cisco Kid or the Google Monster consume the corpse is almost irrelevant as they will cremate and dispose. The notion that Microsoft will resuscitate BlackBerry is something of a joke ...... unless Balmer is replaced and breathes life and logic into an increasingly irrelevant behemoth (remember those lawsuits to prevent Gates from ruling the world).

    As for Prem Watsa ........... I am not the only one to be sceptical. He's simply bargaining to reduce his losses.

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