Lenovo CEO Hints on Possible Lenovo Takeover of BlackBerry

Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo, hinted in an interview with Les Echos, a French newspaper, that a possible deal with smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry could make sense given the right financial and market climate. Yang's statement prompted an increase in BlackBerry's share price.

Also worth noting is Wong Wai Ming, chief financial officer of Lenovo, telling Bloomberg News in January 2013 that Lenovo was "looking at all opportunities," which included the Canadian-based BlackBerry. Thorsten Heins, CEO of BlackBerry, commented during an interview where he was asked about Wong's statement. "As always with these topics, we will talk about things when they are ready to be talked about and ready to be announced," Heins said. "There are other constituents in the process that need to be involved -- if there would be anything."

Any foreign offer to buy BlackBerry would entail regulatory approval from the Canadian government, which examines all foreign buyouts of Canadian companies having asset values of over $335 million to assess if the transactions pose a "net benefit" to Canada.

Channelnomics' Larry Walsh comments on the possibility of a Lenovo-BlackBerry merger in a time when mobile platforms are growing increasingly more viable than conventional PCs. Walsh writes, "What could make a Lenovo takeover of BlackBerry even more interesting is the potential of leveraging BlackBerry 10 as a global operating system. Several PC vendors are growing disillusioned by Microsoft's dominance in the PC OS market and have, to a large degree, shunned Windows Phone 8 as a mobile platform. Although BlackBerry failed to crack the tablet market with its Playbook, its underlying code could prove valuable in enabling other mobile devices."

In China where Lenovo is based, the company enjoys its lead as a smartphone manufacturer. It is also expanding into developing servers, storage, and tablets. For developing new storage products, Lenovo has partnered with EMC Corp. and Iomega. It also works with Google to sell Chromebooks to the education sector.

Bloomberg Businessweek's Bruce Einhorn analyzes the benefits to Lenovo in the event that it takes over BlackBerry. Einhorn says that the international market will prove "challenging" to Lenovo and its dominance in China may be difficult to achieve in the global arena, which includes giants like Apple and Samsung. However, BlackBerry is an enterprise favorite. "Buying a tired brand with strong ties to the corporate world worked once for Lenovo. Yang might be looking for a repeat," Einhorn writes.

For the past four years, BlackBerry has bled market share. In 2012, a massive restructuring was made by the company in line with developing BlackBerry 10, its operating system, and an enterprise server. The company formerly known as Research In Motion, BlackBerry spearheaded the introduction of smartphones to the channel. The company went on to partner with distributors like Ingram Micro, Inc. and Tech Data Corp. to enable IT solution providers and telephony agents to market carrier services, enterprise management platforms, and mobile phones.

Meanwhile, AT&T announces that it is already accepting preorders for the BlackBerry Z10, which has a targeted release date of March 22 in the U.S. T-Mobile and Verizon would also offer the BlackBerry smartphone. (KOM) Link. Link. Link.