by In a sobering reminder of how quickly circumstances can change in the technology world, executives at BlackBerry today announced that they were putting the once-venerable smartphone maker up for sale. According to the Wall Street Journal, though, few companies are expected to take interest.
As the Guardian reports, BlackBerry’s fortunes have collapsed precipitously in the last few years: “Unable to match Apple’s iPhone for cool or the sheer range of devices from Samsung and others using Google’s Android mobile system, its market share has collapsed from close to 50{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} in the US in 2009 to less than 3{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b}, according to figures released last week by the analyst IDC.” It goes on to note that BlackBerry’s latest device, the Z10, was now selling for an embarrassing $19.99, down from its original asking price of $199.
Source: Cnet
There’s apparently some chance that Microsoft will grab a piece of the BlackBerry pie, although that move’s complicated by the Redmond, Washington’s company’s existing alliance with Nokia. Other possible buyers include Samsung, Lenovo, and HTC, although in each case the Canadian government has affirmed that it will investigate any possible acquisition by a foreign company.
Right now, BlackBerry’s prospects are in such a low spot that a sale looks like the only way out. Its BlackBerry 10 OS received positive reviews, but even with that boost, the former smartphone giant only managed to sell 2.1 million devices in the last quarter. According to Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner, such good news comes far too late. “They have suffered a fate a lot of big guys suffer from. They were the first to market, they created the smartphone as we know it. They just didn’t see what was coming next,” Milanesi said to the Guardian.
A tragic end for a device that was once so addicting that they called it the “CrackBerry.”
Follow this article’s writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.
