Saturday, October 26, 2013

Blackberry BUZZ: Sculley or Lenovo (and the prayers of HP and Larry Ellison)?

Data exhaust from Quantum Leap BUZZ (see my BUZZ article from two-and-a-half years ago here): Former Apple CEO Sculley is rumored to be considering a Blackberry bid (see Reuters story here). And the Twitterverse is also abuzz with reports that Lenovo is considering the acquisition (see Time Magazine story here). FYI, White House correspondent Peter Baker's tweet about the New York Times story does a pretty good Net-Net of the Lenovo option (see the October 25th story here): Lenovo's likely ties to Chinese spying would kill Blackberry [my reading between the lines of David Sanger's story]. Not only would President Obama have to give up his treasured Blackberry (from Baker's tweet), but global attention would be focused as never before on China's "roaching" the technology supply chain. My own BUZZ prediction:

If Lenovo buys Blackberry, not only would it kill Blackberry, but Lenovo sales would tank due to increased public awareness of Chinese spying. Which means that the PC execs at HP are probably getting on their dimpled knees every morning and every night and offering a Ricky Bobby prayer to "Baby Jesus" that the Lenovo acquisition will go through so they can regain world leadership in PC sales (and Larry Ellison is probably praying that HP will do something dumb, like buying Blackberry).

I'd personally like to see Sculley put together the deal. Why?

  1. Even though my new Android (Samsung Galaxy S4) is far superior to my old iPhones (don't get me wrong, my wife will ALWAYS have the latest iPhone), I'd prefer a less open supply chain for my smartphone operating system, for security purposes.
  2. Naturally, Mr. Sculley would have to make sure certain key features existed on my new Blackberry (I'll keep those secret for now). And finally,
  3. I'd prefer AT&T as a vendor, since I've had very good luck with them as a cellular provider over the years.
We'll see if either one of the above scenarios plays out.

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?