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BlackBerry will consider sale of company with formation of special committee

BlackBerry will consider sale of company with formation of special committee

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Blackberry 10 Experience event (STOCK)
Blackberry 10 Experience event (STOCK)

BlackBerry has just announced that its board of directors has formed a "special committee" to investigate "strategic alternatives" to help enhance and grow the company's value — and one of the options on the table is a sale of the company. Also on the table are joint ventures or partnerships, but no other companies were named in BlackBerry's press release. This isn't the first time we've heard of BlackBerry investigating its options in an increasingly-competitive smartphone market — in early 2012, the company reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to evaluate its options, and last June the company was reportedly investigating the selloff of its handset business.

Of course, a lot has happened since last year — BlackBerry 10 finally launched in 2013, but so far the new OS hasn't stopped the bleeding for the formerly-dominant company. According to IDC, BlackBerry's marketshare in the mobilie OS race is only 2.9 percent — both the dominant Android and the growing Windows Phone platforms are chipping away at what's left of BlackBerry's base. There's a chance nothing comes of this, as the company warns in its press release, but it looks like the company is more serious than ever at finding a new way to stay afloat and relevant in the mobile marketplace.