The BlackBerry venture wouldn't be for their phone division. It would be for the patents. Blackberry has over a thousand enterprise patents.
I understand the Tizen move. After a phone launches that's the end of Samsung's profitability. Google takes over from there and makes billions off of app purchases made on Samsung's phones.
If anyone in the world could make enough SoCs for a product line launch it is Samsung. They already do it for Apple and themselves and with the partnership with the Global Foundry this could work easily.
Ollie makes some good points, though I question the Tizen move.
Qualcomm is a great company. They are the
leading patent holder in advanced 3G technologies, including the ever popular HSPA which fueled the "4G" revolution in the US. They also developed cdmaOne and CDMA2000. While the CDMA technologies failed to gain world wide adoption, they were adopted by both Sprint and Verizon in the US for both carrier's 3G networks. They also purchased Atheros, one of the leading WiFi chipset manufacturers. Combine cellular, WiFi and a killer quad core ARM CPU and you come up with a great piece of hardware. The device is nothing without the wireless technology that is depended upon to make it work.
Tizen!?!? Hmmm....there is no doubt in my mind that Samsung can pull off Tizen. Here is where I worry: apps. With two huge ecosystems that offer millions of apps, Samsung will have a hard time catching up. Microsoft is proving to the rest of the world how hard it can be to run your own app store. Luckily, they also have Windows **cough** 8.1 to help them reach out. Developers have to develop apps for two primary platforms now as it is. No one really likes developing apps for Windows Phone. Now you have to convince app developers to develop for Tizen as well. I see this working in Korea and China. I feel like they are going to have a hard time selling the phone in the US.
Blackberry, as noted, has many patents. They have over
44,000 patents, which is impressive for any company. What most buyers will want to get their hands on are the security patents. In spite of poor sales and out-of-date device releases, BB has one thing going for them. While Apple may have a stronghold on the "sandboxed" devices market, BB paved the way for mobile security. That might be the only reason the company generates any incoming revenue at all.
I think Samsung could benefit immensely from buying Blackberry. I think it might even give them an edge over Apple. Stick with Qualcomm Atheros. If they build their own chip, chances are they are going to use Qualcomm's wireless technology anyway. I see the point, I just don't think it would be worth it. But I don't know the $$ details. Stay away from Tizen. Trash it. Delete it. Stick with Android. No one wants your sub par (IMO, of coarse) apps. Google does well enough with their own.
