Silver Lake Partners was reported to be trying to add smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry to its portfolio. Silver Lake is a private equity firm steering Dell Inc, a personal computer maker, to a US$25 billion retreat from the stock market. Analysts said that Silver Lake and BlackBerry could build a corporate computing powerhouse that could further help each other grow their individual market shares.
According to Reuters, Silver Lake recently met with BlackBerry's executives to talk about a "potential collaboration" regarding enterprise computing. Their partnership would right away solve the two corporations' distinct problems. Dell could remedy its lack of relevant smartphone or tablet offering while BlackBerry could overcome its dwindling subscriber base and persistent losses.
Last May of 2013, Dell posted its first quarter earnings report that showed profits were down 79% to US$130 million. Its revenues also dropped by 2% to US$14 billion. On the other hand, the shares of BlackBerry have fallen by over 19% in 2013 alone since its new flagship smartphones failed to attract consumers. BlackBerry lost around US$212 million within the last year. It also fell out of the list of the world's five leading smartphone suppliers. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company's short-term cash pile remained at about US$1.5 billion.
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