Some interesting rumors came online today. Rumors about Facebook wanting to take over Blackberry. This roomers say that Facebook had a meeting with the representatives somewhere last week. It’s common knowledge that Blackberry is doing very bad at the moment because of the heavy competitors as Samsung and Apple. Know roomers say that Blackberry is in search for a party to take over. Yet they don’t want to sell at any price, as they have already declined an offer of 4.7 million.
But why should Facebook do this? It can be because of the only successful product Blackberry still owns: Blackberry Messenger. Facebook wants to compete with WhatsApp Messenger and wants to start the biggest instant-messenger platform for smartphones. They are already trying to achieve this with their own Facebook Messenger. But this is maybe not as successful as they hoped. So with overtaking Blackberry Messenger they can benefit of the reputation Blackberry Messenger already has. This is the first option.
Another option is that Facebook maybe wants to start making their own smart phones. Of course they can use the insight of Blackberry, even though Blackberry eventually failed. Facebook already tried this with the HTC First with Facebook Home. This wasn’t really a success.
But is this a smart move of Facebook? I personally doubt this. When Facebook wants to stark making smart phones, why do they want to start from where Blackberry left? Blackberry turned out to be a phone that was known as the phone that was always broke and didn’t last longer than a year. Blackberry is almost bankrupt and is not a strong brand to build on. Maybe Facebook should start to make smart phones under their own name, although this might be really risky.
The only reason I found solid for Facebook to take over Blackberry is the reason that they want Blackberry messenger. This messenger was really popular and had a lot of users. From here Facebook can pick up and build an messengerplatform that can really compete with number one WhatsApp. But why not expand their own messaging app Facebook messenger?
What do you guys think? Should Facebook take over Blackberry or is there only money to lose?
http://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/36215/blackberry-met-facebook-in-gesprek-voor-overname.html
I agree with your point that Facebook making a smartphone themselves is very risky. Although Facebook is a very popular brand I don’t think lots of people are waiting on a smartphone from Facebook. Competing with Apple and Samsung is very hard and I don’t think the almost bankrupt blackberry is a good place to start. Furthermore there is a lot to do with privacy issues of Facebook at the moment. Yesterday I read this article that in iOS (apple’s software) even tough location services are turned off, Facebook still knows your location! With these kind of stories spread daily and don’t think lots of people will thrust the brand enough to by their phone.
Competing with WhatsApp is a better explanation for Facebook to buy Blackberry. I think the biggest problem with competing with WhatsApp is that WhatsApp already has such a huge amount of users. Although there are lots of competitors out there already, such as; iMessage (from apple), Messageme and facebook messenger.
A lot of these competitors often offer more functions to the kind of outdated WhatsApp, (still no iOS 7 update for WhatsApp). With iMessage and Facebook messenger for example you are able to chat on multiple locations (for example on your macbook with iMessage, and everywhere with an internet connection for Facebook messenger). The biggest problem is the big user-base from WhatsApp.
But with rumours spreading of Whatsapp becoming a paid service I think a lot of people will switch to these new platforms. Facebook needs to hurry if they want to use the platform from blackberry!