Blackberry Fires Old Boss, Thorsten Heins

Ailing Canadian smartphone maker, Blackberry, has revealed that its current boss, Thorsten Heins, will be replaced by John Chen to launch another try at the smartphone business which has been abysmal for the company in recent times. Blackberry has also cancelled the plans to take it private by Fairfax Financial Holdings.

Fairfax Financial Holdings which was unable to raise the required $4.7 billion required to purchase the company, instead Blackberry will now raise about $1 billion from its largest shareholder and other institutional investors.

Analysts have predicted that Blackberry’s smartphone business may not be feasible again in the nearest future and it may have to look to its other services for a resurgence of the falling company.

However, the new man to take over the reins at Blackberry, John Chen,  [i. John S. Chen is the interim CEO of BlackBerry Ltd. Previously, he served as the chief executive officer and president of Sybase, an independent software vendor specializing in data management, analytics, and mobility technology.]  has revealed that shelving the smartphone business is not one of his plans for Blackberry.

John Chen was chosen for his experience in situations like these after he led the revival of Sybase in the 1990s.

Blackberry staked its survival on the Z10 and Q10 which it launched earlier this year but the plan failed woefully as the company ended up writing off nearly $1 billion of unmoved inventory.

It will be a hard task to revive Blackberry but time will tell if Mr John Chen will be able to repeat a feat he made earlier in his career.