Lenovo buying Blackberry? Stopped by Canadian gov't

[pkiff]

I found this interesting news today. According to this article in the Globe and Mail in Canada, Lenovo considered putting in an offer to buy Blackberry, but the Canadian government discouraged them by suggesting they wouldn't allow Blackberry (a Canadian company) to be bought by Chinese-based Lenovo because of security concerns.

For those who have already forgotten, or don't know, Blackberry is a mobile communications company that used to dominate the smartphone market (before they were called smartphones) but that has collapsed in the face of competition with Apple iPhones and Android. They've always been something of a tech darling to Canadians.

Lenovo pursued BlackBerry bid, but Ottawa rejected idea:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-o ... e15256976/

I recall seeing a headline somewhere else about how Lenovo and Blackberry might be a good fit, and indeed, it seems to me like such a takeover might have had some slim chance of working. Especially in the enterprise business sector. Curious to learn that it was doomed from the start.

[AnakiMana]

I think Lenovo is probably better off without BlackBerry. It seems nobody has any confidence in them anymore. The question is, what could they have gained with the BB patents, which I assume are quite valuable?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[ajkula66]

Not surprised one bit, given that most Western governments have banned the use of Lenovo laptops citing security concerns.

Rarely do I applaud a government move, but my hat's off to Ottawa on this one.

[ThinkRob]

Odd. 'cause the factories that make BlackBerry devices now?

Yep. China.

[ajkula66]

Odd. 'cause the factories that make BlackBerry devices now?

Yep. China.

Are you sure about that? My supervisor and a few others that I've spoken to were issued testbed (for our purposes) Z10s and those were made in Canada...

[pkiff]

...most Western governments have banned the use of Lenovo laptops citing security concerns.

That's interesting, I honestly didn't know that (not that I would have any reason to know: my involvement with Thinkpads is purely personal). I thought that was just some rumour.

[ajkula66]

@pkiff:

Take a look here:

http://www.informationweek.com/security ... /240159087

[Summilux]

Huh? I can't help but feel that this is a somewhat irrational reaction.

Because it's not like "friendly" states weren't already spying on other states and businesses for decades; it's not like the business world were heavily relying on Blackberry for secure communications. And as someone mentionned, it's not as if a majority of BB's internal components weren't both designed and made in PRC anyway.

Yes, acquiring the company could make things easier for would-be spies, but to which extent?

[pkiff]

Thanks for the link to the article, George.

...it's not like the business world were heavily relying on Blackberry for secure communications.

Well...I'm not saying this proves the case one way or another, but BlackBerry probably does still carry a significant amount of secure business communications on their proprietary email and messaging network. BlacikBerry's email infrastructure is separate from the rest of the Internet and my impression was that BlackBerry's infrastructure is considered much more secure by most businesses than email sent over regular ISP infrastructures using iPhones or Android-based phones. In Canada and the U.S., up until just a few years ago, I would bet that a lot of business deals would indeed have been conducted by sending files over the BlackBerry network.

[ThinkRob]

Are you sure about that? My supervisor and a few others that I've spoken to were issued testbed (for our purposes) Z10s and those were made in Canada...

My memory sucks. The recent production shift I was thinking of was to Malaysia, although they do use Wistron and Flextronics, neither of them (AFAICT) make BlackBerries on lines in China.

However, this Forbes article points to at least some of the internal boards being made in China. Which I would imagine (from a security perspective) would be just about as risky as having the final device assembled there...