Blackberry

Chen

Blackberry

Blackberry has been 'known' as one of the most secure mobile companies, while the BB10 software is lauded by the brand for its safety for users. In recent years, security among nations has been a hot topic and interestingly mobile has played a huge part because companies have been embroiled in the issue. China has been roundly accused by the international community of using private companies to spy on other sovereign nations.

This alone, according to Blackberry's CEO John Chen means that the Canadian company would not be able to be sold to a Chinese company. Lenovo was widely tipped to buy Blackberry and Chen (a native of Hong Kong) even met with the company, and also fellow Chinese brand Xiaomi. However, no deal was made despite rumors never quite going away. Speaking to Bloomberg about any deal with Lenovo or other Chinese companies, Chen said the following:

We probably are unable to do that...I think there will be a lot of regulatory issues and concerns.

Blackberry's enterprise business has kept the company going through a huge decline in hardware sales, and much of the appeal of the software is its unrivalled security. Of course, being bought out by companies accused of being fronts for Chinese government spying would hardly maintain that clean image. With that in mind, Chen is probably right in his assessment, while much has changed since Lenovo's interest was first reported.For a start, the Chinese giant Lenovo/ bought Motorola instead, but Blackberry has improved since those dark days. At the time it was thought Lenovo could get the ailing company for as little as $1 billion, but since then Blackberry has rebounded and is clawing its way back to profitability (a goal likely to be achieved in 2015). The company's market capitalization values it at $5.6 billion, but any potential buy out would probably come at a higher price than that.