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Blackberry is not selling out(Slogan (Pakistan) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Blackberry has survived a looming sell-out as the mobile phone manufacturer now has enough financial aid, from Fairfax Financial Holdings, to prevent it from going private. BlackBerry had been fighting a gloom and doom scenario for months now and the Canadian mobile phone giant now seems to have finally got some good news. An infusion of $1 billion from its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, has gotten BlackBerry out of the puddle, it is reported. The company had earlier issued a public plea announcing that it was no longer on the market, cancelling out a plan that would have seen it go private under Fairfax Financial for $4.7 billion. It was also officially announced by BlackBerry that its CEO Thorsten Heins would step down and the jobs would be taken over by interim CEO John Chen, formerly of Sybase, a mobile software company, who will also serve as the executive chair of the company’s board of directors. The guarding angel for Blackberry, Fairfax’s CEO Prem Watsa will also join the company’s board following the investment. After the unimpressive run of Blackberry devices, the company had given an impression that it would be moving out of the consumer market to focus on its software and B2B prospects. BlackBerry may as well be out of the puddle, but the road ahead doesn’t look that smooth at all. As of the latest quarter, BlackBerry mobiles accumulated only two percent of new smartphone shipments, facing the gargantuan presence of brands like Apple, Samsung and Google. |