Apple Considered Buying Parts of BlackBerry

There were rumours about possible bidders who lined up to potentially acquire BlackBerry, either in full or parts of the company. Turns out, Apple was one of them, according to Reuters’ sources.

During the past three months, BlackBerry was looking into its options, which even included the sale of the company in full or parts of it. FairFax was the first one to publicly take advantage of the opportunity and placed a $4.7-billion bid for the company.

During this review period, however, several technology companies expressed interest in acquiring parts of, or in full, the struggling BlackBerry. According to sources familiar with the discussions, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer was in talks with Apple, Microsoft, Lenovo, Cisco Systems, and Google.

For Lenovo, you already know the response: Ottawa rejected the proposal, citing national security issues, which was pretty predictable.

On the other hand, what’s interesting is Microsoft’s and Apple’s interest. A joint venture of the two already has a precedent, when they teamed up to acquire patents from bankrupt Canadian telecoms company, Nortel.

Breaking BlackBerry into parts isn’t the way out, the company’s board ultimately decided, as it won’t serve the interest of all stakeholders. So, in the end, BlackBerry surprised the tech world by dropping sale plans and announced a $1 billion convertible notes issued to a group of investors, which includes FairFax.