BlackBerry, once the black gem in its industry, announced on September 23rd, 2013 that a group of investors is willing to buy it private for $4.7 billion.  However, it will still be difficult for BlackBerry even it quits the stock market.  Its point of difference (“Three Questions” R0209F) is its convenient text functions, which is favoured by the “text-happy youths” (“Time”).  Currently, with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems, the industry becomes extremely competitive.  Its strong opponent, Apple, is dominating and expanding their customer segments (Osterwalder and Pigneur 20).  BlackBerry is gradually losing its consumers and its new phone, BlackBerry Z10, did not sell well in the market.  Moreover, it has $960 million worth of unsold phone inventory, which lead to its plan on firing 40% of its employees.

BlackBerry’s story shows that in each industry, especially the technology industry, companies need to be constantly ahead of their opponents in order to survive.  With previous examples of the rising and falling of Motorola and Nokia, the industry’s life cycle is getting shorter and shorter.  Despite the fact of BlackBerry’s poor performance, the boss of Fairfax Financial Holdings, Prem Watsa, is making a large bid for BlackBerry.  If Watsa end up owning BlackBerry, hopefully he could come up with an immediate and effective plan to rescue BlackBerry.

BlackBerry Z10

(Photo credit: AFP)

References:

Keller, Kevin Lane, Brian, Sternthal, and Tybout, Alice.  “Three Questions You Need To Ask About Your Brand.”  Harvard Business Review September 2002: R0209F. <http://fcis.vdu.lt/~n.klebanskaja@evf.vdu.lt/fov1-00098617/FOV1-0009D4C0/KEVIN-~1.PDF>

“Time for Plan Z.” The Economists. 23 Sept. 2013. <http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/blackberry>

Osterwalder, Alexander, and Pigneur, Yves.  Business Model Generation.  Self Published 2009.  <https://connect.ubc.ca/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_25036_1%26content_id%3D_1598188_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue>