[techvisor]

This is an interesting theory, derived from inductive reasoning, which suggests that Lenovo has malicious intent. Also worth noting is the author thinks there is no chance Canadian government will allow the sale.

Is China's Lenovo Bidding For BlackBerry To Destroy It? - Forbes

As we learned Thursday, Lenovo Group , the Chinese consumer technology firm, has signed a non-disclosure agreement with BlackBerry in preparation for a bid to buy the struggling Canadian business.

Lenovo surely knows it will not be permitted to take over BlackBerry. Canadian and American authorities are expected to block any sale to a company subject to Beijing�s control, even if that control is only indirect, as it is in the case of Lenovo.

So why is Lenovo in the process of making a bid? In all probability, Chinese government officials want to destroy BlackBerry, just as they destroyed another Canadian tech company, Nortel Networks, last decade.

For almost a decade, the Chinese hacked Nortel, gaining access to nearly everything on its internal networks. As John Tkacik, a retired chief of China intelligence analysis at the State Department, told Forbes at the end of last week, �Not surprisingly, throughout the 2000s, as Nortel�s networks were wholly accessible to Chinese hackers, the Canadian company found itself underbid by the Chinese in the Chinese market and by Chinese competitors in its traditional global markets.� As a result, Nortel declared bankruptcy in 2009. The company was then split up and the parts sold off.

Nortel was an easy target. BlackBerry, on the other hand, is not. As analysts note, the Pentagon believes the BlackBerry is the one phone the Chinese have not yet hacked, and so it is unlikely they have been able to penetrate the company�s internal networks.

If the Chinese have not been able to get into BlackBerry through the back door like they did with Nortel, why not try the front? Lenovo is in fact using the main entrance by expressing an interest in making a bid. By doing so, the semi-private Chinese firm has a reason to comb through BlackBerry�s books.

The Investment Canada Act and other rules give Ottawa the ability to block acquisitions by foreigners, and it�s almost certain the Canadian government will use these powers to stop Lenovo. First, Lenovo�s equipment has already been banned from classified networks in Canada and the U.S., as well as in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.

Second, the mood in Ottawa is now hostile to acquisitions by foreigners. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has rejected three proposed foreign takeovers since it came to power in early 2006, including one this month that took observers by surprise, a deal led by Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian entrepreneur, to buy a fiber optic network from Manitoba Telecom Services.

Third, Lenovo�s bid is much more sensitive than anything that has already been turned down. BlackBerry, despite all its recent troubles, is clearly the phone of choice for Canadian government officials. And their American counterparts too. The Defense Department reports that approximately 470,000 of its 600,000 mobile devices are BlackBerry products. At the end of 2012, there were more than a million BlackBerrys in the hands of Federal and state employees. That includes the most famous of them all, President Obama, who is said to be addicted to his.

�BlackBerry is the prime phone used by all government officials and top officials� said Michael Juneau-Katsuya, a former Asia-Pacific head at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to The Globe and Mail, the Toronto paper. �For that reason alone, it shall not and could not be sold to a foreign entity that is not within the realm of close network of friends.�

Fourth, two Chinese companies thinking of trying to buy BlackBerry recently gave up because they knew they could not get Canadian government approval. Why should Lenovo think it will get a better reception?

Some say security concerns could be met by separating out BlackBerry�s sensitive accounts, but that suggestion misses the point. What is sensitive is BlackBerry�s wireless encryption technology. As analysts know, Lenovo wants BlackBerry�s tech, and the tech is precisely what will not be sold to the Chinese company.

Moreover, even if BlackBerry could be split to the satisfaction of the Canadian and American governments�unlikely, to say the least as the Pentagon has already expressed concern about Lenovo�the rump would be tiny. In Q2, the Waterloo, Ontario-based firm had only 2.7% of the global smartphone market it once owned. A separation of BlackBerry�s business would leave the part available for Lenovo too small to be worth the effort.

In any event, Lenovo probably does not have the resources and ambition to save BlackBerry. Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.43%, with its disastrous Palm acquisition, has already demonstrated how hard it is to rescue such a business, and the jury is still out on Google GOOG -0.21%�s purchase of Motorola Mobility. Finally, Lenovo must know that its takeover of the Canadian firm will not be as easy as its absorption of IBM�s PC business. As Nam Hyung Kim of Arete Research notes, BlackBerry today does not have as big a market share as IBM had when Lenovo bought its PC business in 2005.

So why is Lenovo attempting an almost-impossible bid? The only conclusion that makes sense is that the Chinese government wants an excuse to go through BlackBerry�s books so that it can learn as much about the company as it did about Nortel. And undoubtedly for the same reason.

So expect Chinese companies�Lenovo and perhaps Huawei and ZTE�to underbid BlackBerry time and time again after Lenovo rummages through its books.

We already know the future of BlackBerry after the Chinese descend on Waterloo�it will be the same as Nortel�s.

[playbookster]

Lenovo is a private company, it is not a Chinese spy agency lol

Posted from my Z10

[techvisor]

Lenovo is a private company, it is not a Chinese spy agency lol

Posted from my Z10

Actually Lenovo is part owned by the Chinese govt, indirectly as a matter of speaking. This will break it down for you:
http://www.dailytech.com/The+Real+Fa...rticle2962.htm. Personally I don't think this is a big deal, but Ottawa probably feels differently.