BlackBerry Entertaining Idea Of Going Private Says Sources

It is no secret that Blackberry has fallen from its once high-and-mighty position, suffering financially in the midst of that and making a rather gallant effort to turn itself around. Although the company poured a lot of effort into BlackBerry 10 and the related handsets, it is still faltering, and as a result is open to the idea of going private.

The information comes from the folks over at Reuters who spoke to sources said to be familiar with the matter. According to those sources, BlackBerry's CEO and executives are "coming around to" the possibility of going private with BlackBerry. Under such a move, the company would no longer be under such public scrutiny, and could in return have some wiggle room for getting the company back on track.

Although open to the idea, that doesn't mean that the company is going private, just that the powers that be in the company are at a point where entertaining such an idea is acceptable. Other ideas are being tossed around as well, among them being the licensing of BlackBerry 10 software. Even if the company's board did decide to go private, the process wouldn't necessarily be easy.

Because of BlackBerry's financial troubles, finding someone to fund the business move could be difficult. The sources did say that BlackBerry has been in talks with Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm that has a part in Dell's move to go private. BB's talks with the firm, however, are said to concern "potential collaboration in enterprise computing." Nothing else was involved in the talks, says the source.

All of this is speculation at this point, though nothing the sources said are out of the realm of possibility, especially given the current nature of the company. Whether the decision to go private will ever be made is yet to be seen, but should that happen, BlackBerry will still have a bit of an upward battle in its future.

SOURCE: Reuters