In response to Victor Ho’s blog post about Netflix, I can say that I agree with his predictions  of Netflix if they can successfully secure this deal. Netflix, being the largest internet provider of television shows and movies globally, will reap extreme benefits if they gain the ability to stream movies thirty days after their release. As Victor states in his post, Netflix has “gone from being the king and the first in the industry, to being dethroned and kicked while it’s down, and has climbed its way back up again”. Just in the last quarter alone Netflix, added 1.3 million US customers, and saw its revenue increase by 22%. This deal would secure Netflix as a prominent force in the online entertainment industry.

On top of this deal, Netflix should begin to begin to pursue opportunities in the pay TV business as this would help them take away some of the market for cable television and further drive their profits. They have already started this in the U.K., through partnering with Virgin Media to offer Netflix as an option in the cable company’s set-top box.

Link to Victor Ho’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/hovictor/

Blackberry in its heyday, 2008, had 40% of the smart phone market share and was worth $83 billion. Since then the public company, under the ticker of BBRY, has seen it share price decrease by 90% and its worth decrease to $4 billion. They have initiated many tactics attempting to come out of the state of ailment, such as rejuvenate the hype of the firm by releasing new products and looking for a buyer to make the company private.

As a result of new innovations by companies such as Samsung and Apple, Blackberry has fallen significantly behind in the smart phone market. To match the technological updates of other firms Blackberry recently released a new phone called the Z10. Blackberry imagined releasing this product would help re-establish themselves but it did the complete opposite. This was largely due to the technology of ‘apps’ and how popular they are among apple and samsung consumers. In the latest fiscal quarter, Blackberry is reporting unsold inventory of $960 million and has laid-off 40% of the workforce.

Moreover, Prem Watsa, who is the boss of the large Canadian insurance company Fairfax Financial Holdings, wants to purchase Blackberry and make them a private company. Mr Watsa currently owns 10% of the BBRY shares and has offered to pay $4.7 billion for the company. What makes Blackberry appealing to Fairfax is they have around $2 billion in cash and a number of patents representing a large amount of intellectual property. Although this would make the company easier to deal with, is Blackberry past the point of no return?