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In the worst case scenario the company would be gutted and their patents bought up by others leaving the BlackBerry name dead. That would probably take at least a couple years of them posting losses every quarter considering how much money they currently have and little to no debt. I wouldn't panic quite yet.
Depends on what going out of business means. They'd be bought for sure. If the buyer was not after just patents and wanted to operate then nothing would be affected. Apps developers would possibly shy away if the buyer did not seem intent on growing the base. Or if it just seems a bad fit.
But your phone would still operate. BBM would as well, which at this point is just about all BlackBerry is handling on a consumer Q10.
In any case you are looking at a situation where it would literally be years before any of that is a real concern. You'd be ready for another phone anyway.
Posted via BlackBerry 10
Palm phones are still working (and there's still a small webOS development community) years after Palm disappeared. Don't worry about your actual phone working.
Posted via CB10
Just don't expect any apps to be developed.
Posted via CB10
This forum is bigger but the other eventual outcome would be this place would start to resemble WebOSnation - an end-time cult where people spend all day trying to read something into nothing (DUDE FROM HTC COUGHS ON STAGE = WEBOS PHONE?) and constantly look for the return of the chosen one.
@mjdimer I would not expect that. Hopefully not. It is possible that even abandoned devices develop a vivid indie scene just thinking of Nokias N900(maemo.org), N9(Sailfish is more or less a result of a bunch of N9 enthusiasts) last but not least Palm of course as @mediadavid mentioned.
They won't go under. They will restructure worst case in my opinion.
this.
They would become a small services company and exit the mobile market.
Probably maintain a small team for periodic updates instead of disowning the OS. Oh wait.
Yeah, my Palm Treo 755p works fine. But it didn't use BIS or anything like it.
What of legacy BBs that use BIS? If someone not interested in maintaining BIS took over, my 9930 may well be dead in the water, regarding email.
BIS may or may not survive, depending on the profitability of the business model. That is what it will all come down to at the end.
1. What is the BB10 ecosystem worth?
2. How much cash is left on hand?
3. What is the legacy ecosystem worth, including BBM?
4. What are the patents worth?
They may be worth more to separate companies than as an operating unit.
I think the handset part of the equation will be a real challenge. The keyboard niche that Blackberry fills is real, but not too large. Who could want that piece? Samsung has tried repeatedly to be a player there without much success. Sony is going in a different direction, HTC is broke, Nokia is married to Windows, Apple is Apple, LG can't really see that. Google-ola.... not sure what their vision is but it seems to want to be a paradigm breaker, not a niche filler.
I hope Blackberry can dig this one out but it looks complicated.