Last week rumours of Samsung looking to acquire BlackBerry set the press on fire, as the reported $7.5 billion deal was priced to allegedly swallow up the latter’s patent portfolio.
BlackBerry denied the report (although it took a while) and now Samsung again has clarified to the Wall Street Journal it has no intention to acquire the Canadian smartphone maker.
The South Korean giant’s co-CEO and mobile chief, J.K. Shin, also explained acquiring BlackBerry would be counterintuitive to their existing Knox enterprise security platform:
“We want to work with BlackBerry and develop this partnership, not acquire the company,”
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“We are satisfied with the progress of Knox, including the quality of security and protection that it enables, and remain committed to Knox over the long term,”
Shin also noted today “we value all of our relationships,” referring to BlackBerry and also proclaimed Samsung has no interest in the latter’s patent portfolio, pointing out his company has one of the largest patent portfolios in the tech world, with over 110,000 patents registered worldwide as of the end of 2013.
Both companies announced last November to partner to secure Android in the enterprise.
The initial rumour caused BlackBerry’s stock to spike in after hours trading, but eventually came back down to reality. BlackBerry CEO John Chen also called Industry Minister James Moore at the time of the rumours to reassure the latter the story was just a rumour.
Canadian companies being acquired by foreign entities in transactions over $344 million US require government approval, and even a possible national security review. If the Samsung-BlackBerry deal did go through, the final say would rest in the hands of Ottawa.
