A lot of folks have been suggesting that the only way BlackBerry could save itself would be to start selling phones that run Google Android rather than BlackBerry OS. But if there’s any truth to a new report from Reuters, maybe future BlackBerry phones will run Tizen instead.
According Reuters’s sources, Samsung wants to buy BlackBerry.
Samsung is said to be primarily interested in Blackberry for the patents that it would gain as part of an acquisition. But the deal would also give Samsung control of a brand that’s known for making business-friendly devices with strong support for enterprise security and communications software.
Maybe we’d see future Samsung phones with thumb keyboards as well.
Reuters says Samsung is offering to pay as much as $7.5 billion to acquire BlackBerry. But neither company has spoken publicly about the possibility of a sale yet.
Update: Blackberry says it hasn’t talked to Samsung about a sale and that it won’t further comment on rumors and speculation.
NOPE, just confirmed with Samsung: They said that they didn’t even plan it.
Sounds a bit like some kind of Blackberry stock pump-and-dump to me.
I don’t want Samsung to buy BlackBerry and put Tizen (TizenBerry, ToysenBerry, BoysenBerry) on their phones or products – that would be brutal. QNX is vastly superior and MUCH more established in industry (kiosks, cars, medical, all KINDS of things already run QNX). If they do buy BB though maybe marry the best of both OS’s if possible? I’d go for that.
I DO want Samsung to have a joint venture with BlackBerry however. That would be my wet dream come true. This is potentially awesome if Canada can keep BlackBerry as I highly doubt the Canadian regulators will let this company go to South Korea (see Chinese Lenovo’s failed takeover bid of BB). So many thoughts going through my head right now…crazy! I need a beer…
I’m not so sure QNX could ever be merged with Tizen. QNX is a Microkernel OS, meaning all the different software components of the kernel are separate pieces, that can either be loaded, or not loaded, to scale with the needs of the system.
Tizen is just a GNU/Linux OS. It uses the Linux kernel.
Wow, this is huge news. Say what you will about Blackberry, but they have some valuable assets. This should be fun to see how the Google and Samsung play in the near future.
If Samsung plans on keeping QNX and using it as their core OS I’m all for this happening, cause I don’t think BB’s hardware division will last much longer on its own, and Sammy has the size and cash to push the OS forward at a very fast rate.