Many scoffed at the idea as the company has very little, on the surface, to offer a potential buyer. Its hardware business has collapsed, its latest operating system cannot compete with Android and iOS and its popular BlackBerry Messenger application has been supplanted by Line and WhatsApp, which already have 300 percent more users.
That being said, the company's patent portfolio is potent.
The company has "5,236 active U.S. patents and about 3,730 active applications in the wireless communications space," says ATD.
Chris Marlett, CEO of MDB Capital Group, says that portfolio is strong: "$2 billion to $3 billion ... is easily justified ... as there are approximately 9,000 patent assets with probably 100,000 claims that someone could take a shot at you with in a lawsuit."
That is a basic figure, says Marlett as there could be a premium placed by competing companies. "If (there's) a bidding war, I think the number can go as high as $4 billion to $5 billion," Marlett added. "This is probably the last big and current [wireless] portfolio available. I don't expect any other wireless-focused portfolio this big will come up for sale again anytime soon, so there will be intense interest in this portfolio."
Of course there are only a few companies that could afford to compete for the full portfolio; Samsung, Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 Aug 2013 12:10
