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Canada’s smartphone industry pioneer BlackBerry is giving a lot more thought to taking the company private, according to a new report from Reuters. The strategy has been tabled before, but CEO Thorsten Heins and the BlackBerry Board of Directors are increasingly mulling the possibility of paying off shareholders and structuring a private equity deal to give them a chance to avoid continued public scrutiny.

The message from BlackBerry’s communications department has been pretty consistent regarding its recent quarterly performance, as well as issues like layoffs and executive departures – the company is still in turnaround mode, and needs to make more changes to get the organization ship-shape before it can return to growth. But that’s not a refrain that investors enjoy hearing – especially not when the track’s on repeat.

Going private would dramatically narrow the field of those the company has to be accountable to, and give it a chance to do some of the hard work it needs to do behind closed doors, without so many cooks in the kitchen. It’s a similar strategy to what Dell is currently attempting to do, with Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners slugging it out with public stockholders to take the PC company private.

Michael Dell says he wants to make his company “more founder led than it was in its first few decades,” arguing that this will benefit customers as it transfers risks to he and Silver Lake, while pursuing a more aggressive restructuring strategy designed to put Dell in a position to profit from a changing PC market.

BlackBerry’s Heins hasn’t expressed any similar desires so far, and in fact seemed reluctant to consider the option, preferring instead to make a big bet on BlackBerry 10 and its attendant BB10-powered handsets. So far, that hasn’t prompted quite the resurgence in consumer interest. That could have helped the company warm to the idea of a private equity deal, but also may have made it less likely that BlackBerry can find an interested partner.

The news of late has not be great for BlackBerry, with executive departures and budget cuts leading to layoffs in key areas. Yesterday, it did secure approval from the U.S. Department of Defense to supply that agency with BlackBerry 10 devices, but that’s not a huge win: it will result in 30,000 devices being used by the DOD by the end of the year, but really it would’ve been more surprising if BlackBerry’s latest was rejected for use. In other words, all options are probably on the table, given the state of affairs, and going private might be among the most palatable of those.

The rumors were true. Dell has announced that it will go private, assisted by a $2 billion loan from Microsoft. The full deal between stockholders, Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake is being valued at around $24.4 billion. The exchange, which has been in the works since August, will involve a $2 billion loan from Redmond, as well as debt financing from other companies involved. According to the press release (included after the break) Mr. Dell will continue as CEO if the move goes through, adding his shares and additional capital.

Update: Microsoft has issued a statement about the funding deal with Dell:

“Microsoft has provided a $2 billion loan to the group that has proposed to take Dell private. Microsoft is committed to the long term success of the entire PC ecosystem and invests heavily in a variety of ways to build that ecosystem for the future.”

Filed under: Desktops, Dell

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Source: Microsoft

One of the largest personal-computer makers, Dell, is reportedly looking to become a private company as it’s currently in buyout talks with private-equity firms. At this time, Dell is in preliminary talks with at least two firms, although the talks could fall apart depending on the ability of these firms being able to produce the finance the company requires or the knowhow to exit the investment down the line.

At this point, Dell is staying tight-lipped regarding the situation, but having the company turn private would mean the private firm would buy up all of the publicly traded shares as well as looser regulations.

Since the news hit the wire earlier today, Dell’s shares are trading about 13 percent higher in Monday-afternoon trading. Shares went from $1.41 to $12.30 with over 35.7 million shares being traded.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: MacBook Air And MacBook Pro Rumored For Refresh In June 2013, Intel Buys NVIDIA: A Closer Look At The Possibility [Rumor],

Redmond’s console gaming network may not have suffered a breach of security comparable to last year’s PSN fumble, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t braced for impact. According to Xbox Live General Manager Alex Garden, Microsoft has made great strides in account security by taking legal action against sites who share phished usernames and passwords, enacting two-step login verification for untrusted devices and pushing fresh security updates to devices. Even so, Garden says that many of Xbox Live’s account protection measures rely on member profiles being up to date, and heartily encourages users to make sure their security information is accurate. Get the word directly from the horses mouth at the source link below.

Filed under: Gaming

Microsoft fights back against Xbox Live account threats, begs you to update your security settings originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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