Report: BlackBerry Open to Private Equity Buyout

Members of beleaguered BlackBerry’s (BBRY) board of directors reportedly believe the company may be better served competing with Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Samsung and a host of others in the mobile market as a private company away from the prying eyes of Wall Street. Sounds kind of Dell (DELL)-like, doesn’t it?

According to a Reuters report, BlackBerry top brass, including chief executive Thorsten Heins, are warming to the idea of the vendor handling its business apart from the quarterly performance metrics associated with its standing as a publicly held company. At this point, no suitors have stepped forward, no deal is imminent and the company has not taken the necessary steps to put itself up for sale. But the door has been opened, the report said.

BlackBerry recently huddled with Michael Dell’s private equity partner Silver Lake over an enterprise computing deal but the discussions did not extend to a buyout, according to the report. In January, Chinese PC giant Lenovo was said to have examined the company as a potential acquisition target.

Now that word has surfaced of BlackBerry’s openness to a private equity deal it will be interesting to see what happens from here. To set itself as a viable buyout candidate, BlackBerry still will have to fix some of its glaring problems in a market thoroughly dominated by Google (GOOG) Android devices and Apple’s iOS platform, which together command some 93 percent of the segment. Investor optimism doesn’t exactly surround BlackBerry right now—its stock, at $9.78, is nearly 50 percent off of its 52-week high, and its market value has fallen to about $5 billion, amid news of layoffs, executive firings, fire sales of its Z10 smartphones and subscriber losses.

And, while BlackBerry’s OS 10, at 2.9 percent of the global smartphone market, scuffles with Microsoft’s Windows Phone for a distant third spot behind Android and iOS, the forward momentum in the market appears to be at Microsoft’s back, based on IDC’s recent Q2 smartphone figures.

Still, BlackBerry’s recent notable wins could signal the vendor intends to play off of its strengths, securing the coveted Authority to Operate (ATO) authorization on U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) networks, that will translate to sales of 10,000 BlackBerry 10 smartphones by this fall and an additional 30,000 by the end of the year to the military.

And, if Heins’ BlackBerry 10 licensing efforts and the company’s search for partners to extend the OS beyond the borders of IT devices ever comes to fruition, the vendor’s profile might change in a hurry.

Heins last month reportedly told investors the company is headed in the right direction and asked for patience, contending BlackBerry 10 platform products have only been on the market since February, which isn’t much time to measure its prospects for success. Until now, BlackBerry has stoically maintained its intention to remain an independent company but if potential investors come forward, we will get to see if its resolve changes.