With a tumbling share price and dismal quartley results, it’s no surprise that Blackberry has agreed to be acquired for $4.7bn (£2.9bn)by its biggest shareholder Fairfax Financial.
It now holds just 2.9% of the market, according to research firm IDC, compared with 20% in Autumn 2009, when it used to be the must-have device for businessmen around the world.
What’s more, BlackBerry last week confirmed plans to cut 40% of its global workforce after admitting it expected to report losses of $1bn (£620) in its second quarter.
So why has its presence diminished? The iPhone and other rival operating systems entered the market in 2007, kidnapping BlackBerry’s customers with new apps and better mobile experience.
Does Blackberry have the potential to regain its share of the market?
Jan Dawson, chief telecoms analyst at Ovum, thinks not.
"BlackBerry’s supply chain relies on scale for profitability, and it will never again be able to achieve the scale necessary to make money on devices. It’s likely that BlackBerry will be out of the device business entirely by the middle of next year."
Lawrence Lundy from Frost & Sullivan, is a little more hopeful, saying if Blackberry is still survive, it will need to go back to its roots.
"Going private will give the company room to reorganise away from the glare of the markets. In order to survive Blackberry will need to pull out of the handset and mobile OS markets. Blackberry will no longer be a consumer company; it will be an enterprise security company.
"By focusing on Blackberry Enterprise Services and extending Blackberry Messenger (BBM), and making these services available across all platforms and devices, the company can continue to exist albeit in a much smaller form. This will enable customers to meet the needs of their employees with devices they want, with the security and control required by IT."
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