Blackberry had Apple’s business model back before it was popular, but the two companies went in very different directions. Apple is pushing a $640 billion dollar evaluation while Blackberry is being torn apart by Asian jackals. Lenovo, the boat IBM jumped from, was purchased by a Chinese company who is now circling Blackberry like a shark with the scent of blood in the water. Canada has an investment act granting government control over purchases of Canadian companies by outside agencies, so Blackberry will most likely not be purchased by Lenovo. Blackberry still holds several government contracts which Lenovo wouldn’t be allowed to acquire. In a last ditch effort to salvage what they can, Blackberry opened up their infamous messenger BBM to Android and iOS devices. BBM skyrocketed to 10 million downloads, which looks like it bodes well for the Canadian phone company, but the app is free and won’t do much to plug a sinking ship.

The challenges that face the app are that it’s exclusive to people who have BBM. In order to communicate without interruption to one’s contact list, they would all have to be convinced to sign up and activate Blackberry Messenger. The app is versatile and unique, but the transition would be rough and isn’t streamlined. Kyle Lorden, ‘14 said, “They’ve never been able to keep up with the latest smartphone developments.”

Blackberry was recently shown to own 1.5% of the smartphone market compared to Android’s dominating 81%. Ben Poisson, ‘14 said, “I don’t own one, but my dad did back when they were a business phone,” and they’re even starting to lose that area to more modern and high tech phones like the iPhone.

It looks like it may be time to say sayonara to Blackberry.