Is Lenovo Eyeing Blackberry?

Lenovo reportedly has joined the list of possible Blackberry buyers, with the firm reportedly having approached the struggling Canadian phone maker.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Lenovo, despite previously denying that it was mulling a Blackberry buy (paywalled), has been given the thumbs up to cast an eye over the Canadian company’s books before making it a possible offer.

If reports are to be believed, Lenovo has joined a list of possible buyers that includes Intel, Cisco, SAP, Google, Samsung and LG.

Specific details of Lenovo’s possible acquisition are yet to be revealed, but as a newcomer to the smartphone market Lenovo recently admitted that it is selling more smartphones than tablets and PCs in China, despite being one of the only PC makers to continue showing sales growth.

However, Lenovo’s smartphone portfolio is yet to appear the UK, and the firm hasn’t seen much success outside China. However, picking up Blackberry could help Lenovo enter the global smartphone market, and the firm could be looking to take over from Blackberry as a phone maker focused on business professionals.

Lenovo might have a hard time closing a buyout deal for Blackberry, though. Rumours about a takeover have already led to speculation that such a buyout would struggle to get approval from the US and Canada, due to the company’s Chinese ownership and the fact that Blackberry does business with sensitive parts of both governments.

Blackberry didn’t comment on a possible Lenovo buyout, but instead put out its usual vague statement. A company spokesperson said, “The special committee, with the assistance of Blackberry’s independent financial and legal advisors, is conducting a robust and thorough review of strategic alternatives.”

Lenovo declined to comment on the report.

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Can Blackberry Be Sold?

Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry is reviewing several options that could include joint ventures, partnerships or an outright sale, as the company’s leading shareholder steps down from its board in a possible prelude to taking a different role.

BlackBerry, which pioneered on-your-hip email with its first smartphones and email pagers, said on Monday it had set up a committee to review its options, sparking debate over whether Canada’s one-time crown jewel is more valuable as a whole or snapped up piece by piece by competitors or private investors.

The company said Prem Watsa, whose Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd is BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder, was leaving the board to avoid a possible conflict of interest as BlackBerry determines its next steps.

The resignation of Watsa, often described as Canada’s version of Warren Buffett, suggests Fairfax may be part of a solution.

BlackBerry, once a stock market darling, has bled market share to the likes of Apple Inc and phones using Google Inc’s Android operating system, and its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones have failed to gain traction with consumers.

Blackberry shares rose 7.5 percent to $10.80 in New York and C$10.84 in Toronto in afternoon trading. But the shares remain well below the levels seen in June, before the company reported dismal results that included poor sales of the BlackBerry 10 phones it viewed as key to a successful turnaround.

The share price peaked at about C$150 in June 2008.

A clean balance sheet makes the smartphone seller an enticing takeover candidate. Like Dell Inc, it is a tech icon in need of a turnaround. But BlackBerry’s cash flow is worse, meaning leverage would be extra risky.

The company’s assets include a well-regarded services business that powers BlackBerry’s security-focused messaging system, worth $3 billion to $4.5 billion; a collection of patents that could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion; and $3.1 billion in cash and investments, according to analysts.

But the smartphones that bear its name have little or no value, and it may cost $2 billion to shutter that unit, the analysts said.

Analysts expressed skepticism about the new committee, noting that BlackBerry announced similar steps more than a year ago when it hired JPMorgan and RBC as financial advisers. A source said both are still involved in the strategic review.

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Will The FBI Ditch Blackberry?

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is close to signing a deal to sell its popular line of Galaxy devices to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, sources familiar with the situation said late last  Friday.

The deal would be a boost for Samsung, which is increasingly seeking to cater to the needs of government agencies, a niche long dominated by Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd.

The FBI, with more than 35,000 employees, at present uses mainly BlackBerry devices. It is unclear whether the agency plans to replace all BlackBerry equipment with Galaxy models or whether it will use hardware from both companies.

A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the matter, saying that the selection of its new smartphones is part of an active acquisition process and any current discussions are proprietary to the government.

The imminent deal was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal late on Thursday. The WSJ also said Samsung is close to signing a smaller order for its devices with the U.S. Navy, citing people familiar with the matter.

Representatives of BlackBerry and Samsung declined to comment. BlackBerry emphasized, however, that it regards its operating system as the best in the market in terms of security features.

“The security of mobile devices is more important now than it has ever been before,” BlackBerry’s chief legal officer, Steve Zipperstein, said in an interview. “It is fair to ask why in this context anyone would consider moving from the gold standard in security, which is the BlackBerry platform.”

In May, the U.S. Pentagon cleared Samsung’s Android mobile devices and a new line of BlackBerry devices powered by the BB10 operating system for use on Defense Department networks.

Samsung has been pushing hard to convince government agencies and corporate clients that its Galaxy devices, powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system, can meet their stringent security needs.

The South Korean company hopes that the Pentagon clearance and the imminent deal with the FBI will help boost sales to security-conscious clients including banks and law firms.

Some analysts remain skeptical about whether Android can meet all security requirements of such clients, and note that the FBI itself has highlighted some vulnerabilities of the platform.

“The Android operating system hasn’t been secured properly,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group, noting that Samsung has layered technology on top of the operating system in an attempt to make its Galaxy devices safer.

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Malware Infections On Android Rising

An increasing number of Android phones are infected with mobile malware programs that are capable of turning the handsets into spying devices, according to a report from Kindsight Security Labs, a subsidiary of telecommunications equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent.

The vast majority of mobile devices infected with malware are running the Android operating system and a third of the top 20 malware threats for Android by infection rate fall into the spyware category, Kindsight said in a report released Tuesday that covers the second quarter of 2013.

The Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary sells security appliances to ISPs (Internet service providers) and mobile network operators that can identify known malware threats and infected devices by analyzing the network traffic.

Data collected from its product deployments allows the company to compile statistics about how many devices connected to mobile or broadband networks are infected with malware and determine what are the most commonly detected threats.

The malware infection rate for devices connected to mobile networks is fairly low, averaging at 0.52%, Kindsight said in its report. These infected devices include mobile phones as well as Windows laptops that use a mobile connection through a phone, a 3G USB modem or a mobile hotspot device.

In January the number of infected mobile phones accounted for slightly more than 30% of all infected devices connected to mobile networks, but by June they grew to more than 50%.

The vast majority of infected mobile phones run Android. Those running BlackBerry, iOS and other operating systems represent less than 1% of infected mobile devices, Kindsight said.

When calculated separately, on average more than 1% of Android devices on mobile networks are infected with malware, Kindsight said in its report.

The malware threat most commonly seen on Android devices was an adware Trojan program called Uapush.A that sends SMS messages and steals information, Kindsight said. Uapush.A was responsible for around 53% of the total number of infections detected on Android devices.

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BlackBerry’s Secure Goes To iOS

BlackBerry continues to expand its support for Android and iOS with Secure Work Space, which separates work and personal apps and data, as the device maker tries to hold on to enterprise users by becoming more platform neutral.

Remaining relevant in a world where more than 9 out of 10 smartphones shipped are based on either Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS isn’t easy for BlackBerry. But the company still has fans in enterprise IT departments and hopes to remain an option for users by continuing to embrace the two dominant platforms. The company can already manage devices based on Android and iOS, and support for BlackBerry Messenger is on the way.

BlackBerry announced Secure Work Space in March and has now made good on a promise to ship it before June 30. The software is an add-on to BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) 10, and it adds a managed container to protect corporate data and applications running on Android and iOS devices.

Users get integrated email, calendar and contacts, as well as secure browser access to intranets and document editing capabilities. Data is protected both when stored on the device and when transferred to and from enterprise servers, according to BlackBerry.

“The concept is right and very similar to what AT&T offers with Toggle. Creating two different “personas” on mobile devices is becoming a best practice for enterprises. Buying it from BlackBerry is probably most relevant for enterprises that have a major commitment to BlackBerry 10 and BES 10,” said Leif-Olof Wallin, research vice president at Gartner.

On BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry has tightly integrated a personal and a work environment with the Balance feature.

BlackBerry is far from the only vendor that has adopted this concept. One competitor is Good Technology, which on Tuesday announced a whole host of new applications compatible with its Dynamics Security Mobility platform, which includes support for both app wrapping and encrypted app containers. The list of newcomers includes Mobility for SAP and remote access app Splashtop.

But for those interested in Secure Work Space, which is based on software from OpenPeak, the BES 10 server software is free to download. Annual client access licenses for Secure Work Space are $99 per year and device. For enterprises that want to get their feet wet, the platform is also available as a 60-day free trial bundle that includes device management for BlackBerry 10, iOS and Android devices, as well as Secure Work Space licenses for 50 users.

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Blackberry Plans New Tablet

BlackBerry plans to roll out a larger tablet and two phone-tablet combos, or phablets, over the next year, according to a leaked road map presentation slide.

The three devices will run the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system, which powers the Z10 smartphone and the upcoming Q10, which features a physical qwerty keyboard, according to the slide, which first appeared over the weekend on Twitter as @BB10Leaks.

BlackBerry officials didn’t comment on the road map. However, in comments to analysts last Thursday, CEO Thorstein Heins said repeatedly that the company will introduce more BlackBerry 10 devices this year, though he didn’t indicate what form factors the products would feature.

The three new devices shown in the slide include a BlackBerry 10 tablet with a widescreen aspect ratio, as well as a “U10″ phone-tablet, which some call a phablet, and an “R10″ phablet with a physical qwerty keyboard.

The slide indicates that the B10 tablet will ship in the third or fourth quarter, while the two phablets will be released later, with the U10 shipping at the end of the year and the R10 in spring of 2014.

There are no specifications on the slide, but the devices appear to be shown roughly in proportion to one another, with the phablets appearing to be wider than the existing Z10 and Q10 smartphones.

BlackBerry already has a 7-in. tablet called the PlayBook that is more square in shape than the widescreen look of the B10 in the slide. Some analysts and bloggers said it’s possible that BlackBerry is developing a competitor to the various 9-to-11-in. tablets already on the market, including many Android tablets, as well as the 9.7-in. iPad.

“BlackBerry wants to be a full-line competitor, particularly for business users, so they have to have a full line of products to compete head-on with Apple and Android, primarily Samsung,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J.Gold Associates. “I would expect any viable competitor to establish a full line of products touching on all the various preferences of the marketplace, which includes smartphones, phablets and tablets.”

Gold couldn’t confirm whether any of the details in the leaked slide were accurate, but he noted that it doesn’t appear to include the mid-priced smartphones that Heins and other executives have hinted that BlackBerry may launch over the next few quarters.

The PlayBook tablet first went on sale in April 2011, running on what BlackBerry then called the BlackBerry Tablet OS, based on QNX. BlackBerry later said it would merge that tablet operating system into BlackBerry 10. The company also released a major update to the PlayBook tablet operating system in February 2012.

The first release of the PlayBook was criticized for not having native email.

Analysts are not sure that BlackBerry can keep up with production demand for so many new devices that depend on a relatively constrained supply chain for displays and other components. But to boost its global smartphone market share, currently at less than 10%, BlackBerry will need a product lineup with a variety of options.

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RIM’s PlayBook Tablet Pulled

Models of Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet have been yanked from online stores of some top retailers in the U.S. and Canada, a move one analyst said could mean that the company is gearing up for a successor tablet.

The PlayBook tablet is no longer listed on the online stores of consumer electronics retailers including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, RadioShack and Staples. The products are listed as being out of stock in Office Depot’s online store.

In the BlackBerry maker’s home country of Canada, only the 32GB model is available on the websites of retailers Futureshop and Best Buy Canada, at a discounted rate of C$149.99 ($153). The 16GB and 64GB PlayBook models are out of stock.

However, the tablets remain available on RIM’s own online store.

RIM did not respond to requests for comment.

The first PlayBook shipped in April 19, starting at $500 for a 16GB model, but has sold poorly since. PlayBook sales dropped to about 130,000 in RIM’s most recent fiscal quarter, which ended on Sept. 1.

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RIM Says Subscriber Base Grew

Research in Motion offered investors a glimmer of hope on Tuesday, announcing a surprise jump in subscriber numbers that sent its shares up 5 percent, even as the embattled BlackBerry maker worked hard to drum up enthusiasm for its new BB10 devices.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, once a pioneer in the smartphone arena, has rapidly lost market share in North America to Apple’s snazzier iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy devices.

RIM is now attempting to reinvent itself through the launch of new line of totally revamped smartphones that will run on the new BlackBerry 10, or BB10, operating system. In an attempt to create a buzz around the new devices, RIM gave developers at a gathering Tuesday in San Jose, California, a sneak peek at the smartphone and its features.

At the event, the company also announced that its BlackBerry subscriber base has risen to 80 million from the 78 million it reported earlier this year, surprising many on Wall Street and sparking a jump in the company’s beleaguered share price.

In recent months, RIM has been completely focused on the launch its new line of revamped devices. In the meantime, its aging line-up of smartphones in the market have struggled to compete against the recently launched iPhone 5 and a slew of new Android devices. Most analysts had expected RIM to begin losing subscribers in the recently ended quarter, for the first time in its history.

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Kaspersky Finds New Malware

Kaspersky Lab has discovered three Flame spyware related malware threats that it said use “sophisticated encryption methods”.

Kaspersky claims that it uncovered the three new hostile programs while analysing a number of Command and Control (C&C) servers used by Flame’s creators.

“Sophisticated encryption methods were utilised so that no one, but the attackers, could obtain the data uploaded from infected machines,” the firm’s statement read.

“The analysis of the scripts used to handle data transmissions to the victims revealed four communication protocols, and only one of them was compatible with Flame.

“It means that at least three other types of malware used these Command and Control servers. There is enough evidence to prove that at least one Flame-related malware is operating in the wild.”

The discovery of the three programs indicates that Flame’s Command and Control platform was being developed in 2006, four years earlier than first thought.

Flame was originally uncovered in May targeting Iranian computer systems. The malware drew widespread concerns within the security industry regarding its advanced espionage capabilities.

The full scale of Flame and its overarching implications remain unknown, despite the ongoing joint research campaign being mounted by Kaspersky, IMPACT, CERT-Bund/BSI and Symantec.

“It was problematic for us to estimate the amount of data stolen by Flame, even after the analysis of its Command and Control servers,” said Kaspersky’s chief security expert, Alexander Gostev.

Following the discovery of the three new related programs, Kaspersky’s chief malware expert Vitaly Kamluk told The INQUIRER that Flame is not the only one in this big family.

“There are others and they aren’t just other known malwares such as Stuxnet, Gauss or Duqu,” he said. “They stay in the shadows and no one has published anything about them yet. Others were probably used for different campaigns.”

Kamluk added that it is “very possible” there are more than the three listed in Kaspersky’s report.

“They started building RedProtocol, yet another ‘language’ for unknown malware. No known client types are using that one, which means that there is even more malware out there,” he added.

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RIM, Microsoft Sign Patent Licensing Deal

Research In Motion’s shares jumped on Tuesday after it inked a patent licensing deal with Microsoft Corp to use one of the technology company’s file storage systems.

Microsoft said the patent being licensed by RIM greatly expands the size of files that flash memory devices can handle and increases the speed at which those files can be accessed. The technology also provides the ability to seamlessly transfer data between a variety of different devices.

“This is potentially money out of RIM’s coffers for the right to use the ex-FAT patent in its technology. But what it does for investors and others is provide a glimpse into what the BlackBerry 10 devices can do,” said Kevin Restivo, a mobile device analyst at global research firm IDC.

RIM has seen its once dominant position in the smartphone market slip away to Apple Inc, Samsung and other competitors, and the company’s fate may depend on the success of its new line of devices, the BlackBerry 10, which is set to hit the market early in 2013.

RIM hopes the BlackBerry 10 will help it regain market share that has been ceded to snazzier devices such as Apple’s iPhone and others that run on Google Inc’s Android operating system.

“I think there is some anticipation and speculation around the devices that RIM will launch as a result of the announcement today,” Restivo said.

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