Shares for BlackBerry Ltd. rose on Monday in both Canada and the United States, after rumors of possible interest from ‘strategic buyers’ accompanying an upgrade on their stock from “underperform” to “neutral” (by Kevin Smithen).

Reportedly, the company is talking with Cisco Systems, Google Inc., and SAP about selling parts or all of itself and is, in addition, looking to see if other prospective buyers would be interested. At this point it is undecided whether or not any companies will make a bid but it has been said that many are interested in BlackBerry’s intellectual property.

One analyst, Peter Misek, believes that BlackBerry might be sold in three segments: its operating system and handsets, its messenger platform, and its core enterprise business.

This news follows closely behind other reports of BlackBerry’s failures and its probability of being sold, enhancing it. As discussed in class, BlackBerry has made many mistakes, including not taking advantage of their assets and opportunities. A massive company, which, only just a few years ago may have been associated by the public with the likes of Apple, is now on its last legs. The fall of this empire has been a good lesson to many others, but for BlackBerry, their best option may very well be to sell their business. But how they will go about doing so will be interesting to watch, as there are many options available to them.

Source: http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/7/Cisco-Google-SAP-discussing-BlackBerry-bids-Report.aspx