After half a decade slowly fading away from the public eye, BlackBerry has been acquired by Fairfax Financial Holdings for $4.7 billion. Fairfax have been big investors in BlackBerry and the acquisition had been projected by analysts as a possibility.
Fairfax Financial Holdings is currently the largest investor with 10% hold of the company stock, they have made a deal with BlackBerry (previously RIM) for $9 in cash to acquire the company.
BlackBerry has said it will explore other options before the acquisition with Fairfax is ready, but there is no real buyer in the waiting list and Fairfax has a dominate hold on the Canadian based smartphone maker.
With 4,500 jobs out of the window earlier this week, BlackBerry has been steadily heading into bankruptcy. The vast accumulation of wealth during the company’s golden age has made them steady during the decline, but it has hit hard this year.
BlackBerry will most likely turn into a privately run phone maker for enterprise level employees. They have already started a move out of the consumer market, with BlackBerry expected to make a $1 billion loss this year, mostly due to the failure of BB10.
The BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 have both failed in terms of revenue and usage, with less than 2 million buyers and poor feedback from the community. The BB7 smartphones have actually sold more this year, showing the demand for BlackBerry is almost nonexistent compared to iOS and Android.
Many have went onto social networks to vouch their disappointment seeing an old company go private and almost under, but the problem was BlackBerry’s arrogance on the smartphone and how successful the iPhone and Android smartphones would become.
It took the company almost half a decade to get a real smartphone competitor in place, relying heavily on the vast need for qwerty keyboards and roller mouse buttons, which declined rapidly as the iPhone and Android OS became well loved and used.