Report: BlackBerry, Facebook execs discussed potential bid
BlackBerry is turning out to be much more popular by being on the market compared to its own mobile devices flailing in the consumer tech market.
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Ever since the Canadian phone maker put itself on the market in August, which was followed by a preliminary $4.7 billion buyout deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings in September, numerous reports have circulated about other tech giants wanting a piece of the BlackBerry pie.
Lenovo was most recently being named around the rumor mill as a potential buyer.
Now it looks like Facebook might be in the running, which is bound to start up more rumors about another Facebook phone -- as if the dead-on-arrival Facebook Home scheme wasn't lesson enough.
According to The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, BlackBerry executives met with Facebook leadership at the social network's Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters last week.
Neither party has commented about what was discussed -- or even if Facebook is making a bid at all, whether it be for patents, software, hardware -- or a mélange of the three.
Nevertheless, such a deal might not be so surprising given Facebook's mobile-first approach -- not to mention a new feature it is testing right now that is quite similar to one of the most popular on BlackBerry's platform, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
Announced earlier on Tuesday, the highlight of the Android software update is a mobile-to-mobile messaging experience in which Facebook members will be able to send messages to other users who aren't their Facebook friends already -- if they have the recipient's phone number.
Starting today, the feature is rolling out to a limited number of users for testing.