Ever since a report surfaced last week that claimed that Samsung may have offered to buy BlackBerry, there’s been a lot of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation about whether or not a deal will happen. Today Samsung co-CEO J.K. Shin has issued a statement in an attempt to clarify the matter.
Shin has told the Wall Street Journal that Samsung wants to work with BlackBerry and build its partnership with the Canadian firm, not buy it outright. Samsung is talking with BlackBerry about possibly using BlackBerry tech in Samsung smartphones, Shin explained.
Shin went on to say that acquiring BlackBerry would be counter to Samsung’s recent enterprise strategy. “We are satisfied wit the progress of Knox, including the quality of security and protection that it enables, and remain committed to Knox over the long term.” Knox is Samsung’s own enterprise offering that offers device protection and management services.
Finally, Samsung told the WSJ that it isn’t aiming to acquire BlackBerry’s patent portfolio, which is one of the reasons that some speculated that Samsung may want to buy BlackBerry.
So will the rumors of Samsung buying BlackBerry die now? Probably not, because it’s not like either company would just come out and say, “Yep, the rumors are true.” It’s certainly possible that J.K. Shin is speaking the truth when he says that Samsung just wants to build its relationship with BlackBerry, though, by utilizing some of BlackBerry’s tech in its own offerings.
Do you think Samsung is interested in acquiring BlackBerry or will this latest rumor to out to be nothing more than a rumor?
