BlackBerry may put itself up for sale: A look at potential buyers

Blackberry today announced that its board of directors has formed a committee to explore strategic alternatives for the future of the company. Now this could include joint ventures or a sale of the company, as the smartphone maker continues to struggles in a highly competitive market.

For BlackBerry, achieving success for its new OS BlackBerry 10 has been a tough task.

The million dollar question is who will buy it since it is bleeding subscribers, reporting losses andfaces an uphill battle to regain market share from Apple’s iPhone and devices that run on Google’s Android system.

But even while smartphone sales are dropping, BlackBerry still has a number of assets to whet the appetite of potential buyers or partners.Its patent portfolio and high-margin services business could draw interest from technology companies.

At one point it was reported that Samsung could be looking at buying RIM (what BlackBerry was called previously) but the South-Korean firm had denied any such deal.

It was also reported that BlackBerry could start licensing its new BB 10 OS to other smartphone makers, similar to what Microsoft is following with Windows Phone 8, but so far no such deal has materialised.

Here’s a list of buyers who might be interested in buying the Canadian smartphone maker:

1. Going Private:

BlackBerry has recently had discussions with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners about potential collaboration in enterprise computing, Reuters had reported on Saturday.

“Silver Lake is caught in a bruising $25 billion battle to take Dell Inc private. Should it succeed in the Dell buyout, one possibility could be for it to collaborate with BlackBerry in mobile computing, where the PC maker has struggled to gain traction,” the report had said.

But, the discussions did not involve any buyout or other transaction-related talks.

2. Lenovo: Earlier this year, an official fromChina’s Lenovo Group told a French newspaper o that the personal computer maker might consider an acquisition of Canada’s BlackBerry at some point in the future.

Lenovo CEO was quoted as saying that a deal “could possibly make sense, but first I need to analyse the market and understand what exactly the importance of this company is.”

3. **Microsoft:**Purchasing BlackBerry would give Microsoft an edge over its competitors. BlackBerry will give it an even broader portfolio of software and hardware patents as well as an established mobile device manufacturing business.

4.**Huawei/****Xiaomi:**A reprot in Quartz says it makes perfect sense for a Chinese manufacturer to acquire BlackBerry since theydesire to sell to the world’s most profitable market but do not haveany brand recognition in North America.

“Huawei, which has had great trouble getting into Western markets, may find a Canadian company an attractive proposition for the brand cover it provides. Or Xiaomi, which only serves the Greater China market at the moment, may like the idea of a readymade market presence for its phones,” the report said .

However, it’s worth pointing out that plenty of companies have looked at BlackBerry and not taken the plunge, including Amazon and Microsoft.