I really hope they'll do a spin-out of QnX and/or open source it under a license that allows forking. That would be a major move.
When BlackBerry bought QNX they removed the source code so don't hold your breath.
Was the QNX source ever available?
BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
61–70 of 115 posts
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#62For the good of humanity, I hope someone reasonable (Google?) buys the ex-Certicom ECC patents and opens them up (free, ideally, but genuinely easy to license would be ok.)
What is ECC, why is it important, and what does Blackberry currently do with their associated patents?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography
I was lucky to see the notice published in the federal register a while ago (6 or 7 years ago atleast) and made a little pocket cash when the market realized that Certichron was undervalued.
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
BlackBerry Ltd.'s board of directors has formed a special committee to explore “strategic alternatives,” including the possible sale of the company. Like I said, a sale is one of the things being considered in a long list of other options. But the title doesn't convey that.
Whenever they say that, they mean "sale." It's typical BigCo doublespeak. In their minds, they're trying to convey the impression that they have choices, so that when they negotiate the sale they don't have their backs up against the wall. But everyone knows it means "sale."
Totally agree with you on that one. Especially with strategic alternatives in quotes.
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is ECC, why is it important, and what does Blackberry currently do with their associated patents?
1) y^2 = x^3 + ax + b 2) 2048 3) ∅
I got a chuckle because your answer is technically correct although it doesn't help anyone who doesn't know what ECC already is. Nerd!
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not true. The market cap which is the value of all outstanding shares. Debt and cash are factored into the market cap.
His point is that the company has a net cash position of $3bn, meaning someone who pays $5bn for the entire market cap of the company would immediately receive $3bn back in cash, making the real price effectively $2bn
But he is saying the $5bn already includes a discount for the cash you will get back. The market knows it has 3bn in cash lying around, so the market reckons that all of Blackberry's future profits and its on hand cash, are worth $8bn today, but that includes the $3bn of cash, so it adjusts the shares down to be $5bn - effectively saying the market thinks Blackberry can generate another $5bn worth of dividend-able profit for the rest of its life. For a company with an EBITDA of 1.3bn thats about 3 years.
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please no, BB10 is superior to Android and already runs Android apps.
> Already runs Android apps. Not well. They're sluggish, and no features past Gingerbread are supported.
That's about to change with the release of 10.2 this September. It supports Android 4.2.2 APIs, and runs them pretty well.
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#67As an Android developer by day, and a BlackBerry developer by night, it boggles my mind why everyone thinks BB10 is crap, and that no one wants it.
Spend 1 week with a BlackBerry Z10 or Q10, and you'll see how great it actually is in comparison to other platforms. Spend some time developing an app for it in Qt and Cascades, and you'll see how great it is to develop for, in comparison to other platforms.
People also need to realize that this isn't RIM; that company was big, sluggish, and full of idiots running it. BlackBerry is a much different company now. They're very humbled, and willing to listen to their customers and developers. As an example, I was looking at their Bluetooth APIs a few months ago, trying to figure out how to do out-of-band (OOB) pairing for a client. The APIs existed, but they were marked internal-use-only. I contacted their developer relations team, who put me in touch with the engineers so I could explain my use case. They said they'd review it and let me know. Lo and behold, in the new 10.2 beta SDK, those APIs are now available for all developers to use. It's one anecdotal example, but talk to others in the community and you'll hear many more like it.
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
His point is that the company has a net cash position of $3bn, meaning someone who pays $5bn for the entire market cap of the company would immediately receive $3bn back in cash, making the real price effectively $2bn
But he is saying the $5bn already includes a discount for the cash you will get back. The market knows it has 3bn in cash lying around, so the market reckons that all of Blackberry's future profits and its on hand cash, are worth $8bn today, but that includes the $3bn of cash, so it adjusts the shares down to be $5bn - effectively saying the market thinks Blackberry can generate another $5bn worth of dividend-able pr…
What is the market cap of a lemonade stand with 3bn cash?
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Already runs Android apps. Not well. They're sluggish, and no features past Gingerbread are supported.
That's about to change with the release of 10.2 this September. It supports Android 4.2.2 APIs, and runs them pretty well.
Do they support an Android app store? Do they need to be sideloaded?
Re: BlackBerry puts itself up for sale
#70Is Blackberry synonymous with RIM (Research In Motion)?