One member of the committee of the board of directors of BlackBerry Ltd. to explore strategic alternatives manager said the Canadian smartphone maker may compete as a “niche business” in that market.
In an interview in Stockholm, Bert Nordberg, who was appointed in February as a member of the board, said he is aware of the value that the company has created in areas such as the corporate sector, hardware functionality and secure communications. It was the first interview with a board member since the company BlackBerry in early August announced a strategic review of its business model.
Nordberg said there are “subsets within the company that can do without”. The manager did not rule out a sale or strategic alliance and did not specify what “sub” could be sold.
What I said was that BlackBerry needs to address the gulf between its value on paper and the way Wall Street sees the value of the company.
“If you compare the book value of BlackBerry versus market value, it is clear that there is much work to do,” said Nordberg. Although recognized to be a small player in the global smartphone market is difficult, said he believes BlackBerry maker may remain a niche mobile hardware.
“I think BlackBerry can survive as a niche company. But for that, you have to decide to be a niche company. Historically, BlackBerry has had bigger ambitions. But fighting giants like Apple, Google and Samsung is difficult, “he said.
After being a pioneer in the early days of the smartphone market, participation and BlackBerry’s market capitalization has plummeted in recent years. BlackBerry’s played all or nothing with a massive release of a new operating system and several new phones this year, but these seem to have been well received. And after months of speculation about his future, the company announced in August the formation of a special committee of the board to explore strategic options for the first time explicitly included the possibility of a sale.
Nordberg, a Swede, 57, joined the board in February BlackBerry, along with former Verizon executive Richard Lynch. Although they were new to the board, both were selected to serve on the special committee of five, headed by Timothy Dattels, a former Goldman Sachs executive.
Nordberg believes that its inclusion on the committee has to do with their recent experience to sell to the Japanese Sony Ericsson had the stake in Sony Ericsson.
BlackBerry
hired J. P. Morgan to help her with the review, part of which involves calculating the value of different parts of the Canadian company.
“unique assets BlackBerry differentiate it from other phone makers,” said Nordberg. “He is strong in the corporate segment, products are proof the NSA (National Security Agency of the USA) in the sense that their communications can not be intercepted, the keyboard of your devices has many fans around the world, and the company has a leading global data network. “
Nordberg said that although only attended three general meetings of the board, communicates weekly with the special committee and believes that his opinion on the status of BlackBerry is shared by the rest of the board.
Nordberg was instrumental in the enormous effort of restructuring the Swedish company Ericsson mobile networks, after the company was on the verge of bankruptcy in the early 2000s.
Then, as chief executive Sony Ericsson, Nordberg oversaw a major change in strategy and participated in the sales process Ericsson’s participation in the joint venture with Sony.
One of his first decisions was to remove Sony Ericsson’s presence in the market had low-end basic mobile phones to focus only on smartphones with Android operating system of Google Inc.
“As chief executive of Sony Ericsson, the decision to go for Android was easy,” he said. “With BlackBerry, things are definitely more difficult. The BlackBerry security framework is integrated with mobile software, so you can not just decide to change the operating system. But BlackBerry has cash and no debt, so I’m sure that eventually we will find a solution, “he said.
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