Skip to main content

Drama continues as BB fires its CEO and fails to get acquired

BlackBerry Q10 review top front
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Fairfax Financial buyout is off, the company is no longer for sale, Heins is out and goodness only knows what’s going to happen next in the never-ending drama that is BlackBerry.

In a surprising development Monday, the mobile maker announced Thorsten Heins – the man brought in to turn the company around following the departure of co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in January 2012 – will step down as CEO, while the $4.7 billion buyout offer from Toronto-based consortium Fairfax Financial is now off the table.

Recommended Videos

It’s not clear why the Fairfax offer is dead, though recent reports suggested it was having problems financing the deal.

Instead, Fairfax will lead a group investing $1 billion in BlackBerry. Barbara Stymiest, chair of BlackBerry’s board, said the new financing will provide “an immediate cash injection on terms favorable to BlackBerry, enhancing our substantial cash position.”

CEO Thorston Heins
Thorsten Heins will leave his position once the Fairfax deal is signed and sealed, probably within the next two weeks. Image used with permission by copyright holder

As for Heins’ successor, the company will hand the baton to John Chen, former CEO of enterprise software company Sybase, while it searches for a permanent replacement.

“I am pleased to join a company with as much potential as BlackBerry,” Chen said in a release Monday. “BlackBerry is an iconic brand with enormous potential – but it’s going to take time, discipline and tough decisions to reclaim our success.”

Following his appointment, Chen told the Associated Press that BlackBerry is “really not in phones but we’re in phones for software, for services,” adding that he wanted to find a CEO with a strong software and services background. Chen’s words suggest BlackBerry may at some point cease selling handsets – a space in which it once excelled – though in another interview he said he wanted to continue with handset development, believing that there are “enough ingredients to build a long-term sustainable business.”

The Waterloo, Ontario firm said Monday’s decisions signal the end of its two-month exploration of “strategic alternatives” for the company. During that time, Fairfax put in its failed $4.7 billion offer for BlackBerry, while reports at the time suggested company founder and former CEO Mike Lazaridis was looking to make a bid. Tech company Lenovo and social networking site Facebook were also thought to be considering their own offers.

Monday’s announcement comes as the company makes plans to lay off 4,500 workers, equal to 40 percent of its workforce, as it struggles to remain relevant in an industry where other mobile operating systems, such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, have left it behind.

Once the world’s leading maker of smartphones, the company formerly known as Research In Motion once had a more than 50 percent share of the US market. The arrival of the iPhone in 2007, as well as plenty of appealing Android handsets, has resulted in its share plummeting to just 3 percent.

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Everything you need to know about the OnePlus 13
Official OnePlus 13 product renders showing rear panel colors.

OnePlus is an excellent brand that offers powerful flagship phones at a great value compared to some of its competitors. We followed every rumor about the OnePlus 13 for months, but now it's here — and it's everything we hoped for. It might not be available in the Western market yet, but it will be soon.

So, what makes the OnePlus 13 so special? Here's everything you need to know about OnePlus' latest flagship.
When is the OnePlus 13 being released?

Read more
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite vs. MediaTek Dimensity 9400: the race is on
Comparison of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and MediaTek Dimensity 9400 processors.

The flagship mobile silicon race has entered its next phase, one that will dictate the trajectory of Android hardware heading into 2025. Merely weeks after MediaTek wowed us with the Dimensity 9400 system on a chip (SoC), Qualcomm also pulled a surprise with the reveal of the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

But this time around, the battle is not as straightforward. Where MediaTek is working closely with Arm and adopting its latest CPU and graphics innovations, Qualcomm has firmly put its faith in custom cores. These are no ordinary cores, but a next-gen iteration of the same fundamental tech stack that powers Windows on ARM laptops.

Read more
Discolored line on your new Kindle? You aren’t alone
Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition on a table.

The new Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is the first full-color e-reader, and a lot of bookworms couldn't wait to get their hands on it. Sadly, many people are reporting the display has a discolored yellow area at the bottom of the screen. The problem is so widespread that the Kindle Colorsoft dropped to an average review rating of 2.6 out of 5, although it does remain the bestselling e-book reader at the moment.

The cause of the discoloration isn't clear. Some users report that it only happens when using the edge lighting feature on the Kindle, while others say it appeared after a software update. Either way, the yellowing is a problem, especially on a device that Amazon has marketed as being great for comics and graphic novel fans. It's hard to enjoy the colorwork in a comic when it's distorted.

Read more