Blackberry’s in trouble. Ever since the iPhone’s debut in 2007 blindsided them, the once-dominant smatphone company has been struggling to recover its mojo. Who can save the floundering Canadian company from ruin? Former Apple CEO John Sculley to the rescue!
The Globe and Mail reports:
John Sculley, the former Apple Inc. CEO who famously clashed with Steve Jobs, is exploring a bid for beleaguered BlackBerry Ltd. with Canadian partners, sources have told The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Sculley said he could not comment on the matter, but noted “I’ve been a long-time BlackBerry fan and user.”
Sculley gets a bad rap because of his clashes with Steve Jobs, but it’s actually overblown. Sculley was a great CEO who helped drive Apple to huge growth. He made a foolish mistake to port Mac OS to run on the PowerPC instead of Intel, which ultimately led to his ouster, but it was his successors in the 90s who really drove the company into the ground before Steve Jobs came back to save it.
Sculley’s a proven businessman and leader, but can Blackberry even be saved? Sculley seems to think so. “The only thing I would say is, I think there’s a lot of future value in Blackberry,” Mr. Sculley said, “but without experienced people who have run this type of business, and without a strategic plan, it would be really challenging … Whoever buys it would have to have a strategic plan that was credible and could succeed, and they would want to have an experienced team that would be able to implement that plan.”
Source: Globe And Mail
