Apple showed interest in BlackBerry patent buy, board refused offer

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 57
    Originally Posted by Lord Amhran View Post

    TS, good to see you back. How'd you get the banhammer in the first place?

     

    Too mean to a conspiracy theorist, which is fine; I needed reigned in.

  • Reply 42 of 57
    frood wrote: »
    Time to break out the popcorn though, it should be interesting to see how the MicrApple patent trolling venture goes.  They paid a hefty $4.5bil for that fishing net, should be fun to watch what they can catch with it.

    So true, and to think Google paid about four times that amount for MotoMo that may not even have got itself in the black yet. While the patents turned out to be worth peanuts. Meanwhile Apple and Rockstar have some real jewels in their hands... I think Christmas 2014 they may be doing a dirge as they walk Android down it's little green mile... Singing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead..."
  • Reply 43 of 57
    Too mean to a conspiracy theorist, which is fine; I needed reigned in.

    Clipped your nuts, did they?? ;)
  • Reply 44 of 57
    hill60 wrote: »
    The iPad in question was being removed from a security device with a screwdriver, the instructions specifically warn not to do it that way but to use the provided tool to twist it off.

    One of the hazards of piercing a charged Lithium-ion battery with a metal screwdriver is that it can explode, which is what happened.

    Businesses have to protect their copyrights or they risk losing them what happened in the second story is normal.

    Back on topic, Apple should start buying BB shares and when they have enough launch a hostile take over then strip the company and keep the IP, maybe they can get Icahn to help.

    That would be a hostile takeover. I think the Canadian government would not allow that in the case of Blackberry. First, they'd load the Toronto mayor up on crack, tell him Tim was talking smack about him, and ship him to the Apple campus armed ...
  • Reply 45 of 57
    droidftwdroidftw Posts: 1,009member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Macky the Macky View Post



    While the patents turned out to be worth peanuts.

     

    I keep seeing people say this, but I don't think any of us will ever know.  To say that the patents turned out to be worthless assumes that for a patent portfolio to be worth anything that the company must aggressively sue other companies for every dime they can.  Google doesn't have a history of aggressively using their patents so money made from the portfolio from that path has been low.  However, many of Google's competitors do have quite the extensive history of aggressively using patents.  Had one of those aggressive competitors gotten ahold of Motorola's patent portfolio I think we all know Google would be one of the many targets with the newly purchased ammunition.  Would the lawsuits have cost Google more then the purchase price of the patent portfolio?  Nobody will ever know.

  • Reply 46 of 57
    jungmark wrote: »
    He/it posts the same comment on numerous threads. It has no life. Most trolls drive-by but it pollutes the current discussions and continues to pollute.

    For all you know it could be a bot designed to pollute the blog with irrelevant stuff for many reasons. Bad mouthing Apple. Wonder who is the bot developer working for. Microsoft , Samsung ?
    A news like that would be the competitions idea of gaining an upper hand over Apples tablet offering.
    There motto "If you can't beat them with tech , beat them by using dirty tricks"
  • Reply 47 of 57
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    droidftw wrote: »
    Got a link for that?  I can't find mention of that being the cause.

    No but I work for Vodafone Australia, we have the same set up in our store, the iPad Air was replacing the Retina on our displays and what I described is exactly what happened.

    Any more than that is not available publicly that I am aware of.
  • Reply 48 of 57
    jungmark wrote: »
    He/it posts the same comment on numerous threads. It has no life. Most trolls drive-by but it pollutes the current discussions and continues to pollute.

    It puts the lotion in the basket.
  • Reply 49 of 57
    It's not. 

    Maybe AI should follow Google's lead and not allow nicknames to be used for posting and require a full name or email address before a post is accepted.
  • Reply 50 of 57
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    crosslad wrote: »
    It's not. 

    Maybe AI should follow Google's lead and not allow nicknames to be used for posting and require a full name or email address before a post is accepted.

    So you think the names displayed on Google are people's real names? 'kay
  • Reply 51 of 57
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,036member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DroidFTW View Post

     

     

    I keep seeing people say this, but I don't think any of us will ever know.  To say that the patents turned out to be worthless assumes that for a patent portfolio to be worth anything that the company must aggressively sue other companies for every dime they can.  Google doesn't have a history of aggressively using their patents so money made from the portfolio from that path has been low.  However, many of Google's competitors do have quite the extensive history of aggressively using patents.  Had one of those aggressive competitors gotten ahold of Motorola's patent portfolio I think we all know Google would be one of the many targets with the newly purchased ammunition.  Would the lawsuits have cost Google more then the purchase price of the patent portfolio?  Nobody will ever know.


    Had any of Google competitors gotten hold of MM patents and try to do what Google did with using SEP patents as a means of extortion, they would have had the same result as Google / MM .............. found guilty, in multiple courts, of abusing SEP patents and antitrust violation. So we do know that lawsuits against Google would not come close to the $12.5 Billion they paid for MM had their competitors gotten hold of MM patent portfolio. (Of course we have to assume that Google is willing to license out the patents,when given a FRAND offer, in the first place. It's a big assumption.)

     

    But lets be realistic here. Google bought MM (and their patents) to prevent MM from going after other Android phone makers because they were more profitable (and by more profitable, I mean they were not losing $500 million a quarter) all the while using MM patents in their phones. Google saw this as the real threat to Android. So buying MM wasn't worthless in this regard. But you can't say that about MM patent portfolio when it comes to a means of warding off competitors from suing Google for non-SEP patents infringement.   

  • Reply 52 of 57
    z3r0z3r0 Posts: 238member

    What would be interesting is if Apple would purchase QNX RTOS or if Blackberry would open source QNX RTOS before it went down.

  • Reply 53 of 57
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    They have some patents on elliptic curve crypto, don't they? Very desirable. But it's up to the board to decide what's in the best interest of shareholders, they must think they can make more money staying together than being sold off as parts.

  • Reply 54 of 57
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    The title should have a 'their' before 'board'.

    Better yet Apple's or BB's, not clear who's board refused without reading the article.
  • Reply 55 of 57
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy View Post



    "Stakeholders"? I guess that means people other than shareholders? Seems like it would be in the best interest of the shareholders to break it up and sell it off while there is anything left of value. Of corse the Canadian government would probably try to block any such thing. Maybe they are a stakeholder?

    Stakeholders also include bond holders and employees.  

  • Reply 56 of 57
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

    In addition to the investment, CEO Thorsten Heins resigned both his position and seat on the board, with former Sybase chief executive John Chen taking over in the interim.

     

    Good luck with that John.  You did a fantastic job with Sybase, but the RDBMS software market is 99.999% enterprise-oriented, and after 13 years of innovation and growth at Sybase, the end result was SAP acquiring the company.  For just $5.8 billion.

     

    BlackBerry just might be a much harder company to turn around.  They're being hit from all angles by Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft.  Might be too late to save this one.  But whatever.  We want you to make it work, John.  Somehow.  Anyhow.

  • Reply 57 of 57
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by akqies View Post



    It looks lilt both Blackberry and the Canadian Gov't aren't too keen in outside buyouts. I'm all for national pride but not if the end result is less than selling it to an outside 3rd-party.

    The government does not object to outside buyouts; it didn't interfere with Apple's purchase of NorTel's patent package. In tghis case, the government was not happy with a Chinese buyout.

     

    Cheers

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