BlackBerry Limited, the manufacturer of the famous mobile phones, announced that its board of directors has formed a special committee with the task of exploring new strategic alternatives. The possibilities are a joint venture, strategic partnerships or alliances but also a possible sale of the company. This is truly a sensational possibility for a former queen in the field of smartphones.

The press release speaks primarily of measures to accelerate the deployment of the BlackBerry 10 operating system. However, it’s clear that the official announcement that the sale of the company is taken into consideration confirms that the crisis that has been going on for a few years continues, and perhaps it got even worse.

On the other hand, a few weeks ago the announcement came that the BlackBerry had closed the first quarter of fiscal year 2014, which is the second quarter of 2013, with a loss of $84 million against $94 million profit in the previous quarter. As a result, the company’s shares had lost more than 20% of their value in a very short time.

The CEO Thorsten Heins (photo courtesy BlackBerry Limited. Unauthorized use is not permitted), who took office in early 2012 after the resignation of the founders and co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, failed to do the miracle. Under his guidance the BlackBerry 10 and BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) 10 platforms have been made available  and the company changed its name from the historic Research in Motion to BlackBerry Limited but it wasn’t enough.

Rumors of a possible sale of BlackBerry Limited have been around for a long time, now this possibility has been simply made official. The possibility of a partnership of a different kind remains open, a bit like the one between Microsoft and Nokia. These two companies are among the potential partners or buyers but there’s also Samsung, which continues to try to offer alternatives to Android.

Buying BlackBerry Limited would probably require several billion dollars so not many companies could afford it. That’s really a lot of money but about five years ago the company’s value was estimated at around $70 billion, just to understand how it decayed.

Another possibility is that the BlackBerry Limited goes back to being a private company. Getting out from the stock exchange would allow the company to work without the risk that its shares lose value with every new problem. However this again requires a lot of money and it’s not easy to find someone who can invest billions.

At this time it’s difficult to understand what future awaits BlackBerry Limited. It could still take a long time before anything happens: the company’s value could still drop and at that point someone will decide that it’s worth buying it. It would be a sad end but the market is ruthless.

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