Waterloo's BlackBerry Courted By Chinese

China’s PC juggernaut Lenovo might be the last desktop maker standing, so it makes sense that it buys BlackBerry, only insofar as both seem to be in an old tech business.

Lenovo with PCs and laptops, and BlackBerry quickly disappearing from the smart phone space after basically creating it in the mid-2000s.

Yang Yuanqing, chairman and chief executive officer of Lenovo said this weekend that the company was actively looking to get into mobile.  His remarks follow Chinese media reports that the company is in talks with Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry to acquire the brand for around $5 billion.

Yang’s remarks came amid reports that the Chinese company is in talks with embattled BlackBerry Ltd on a merger possibly worth $4.7 billion. Lenovo grew up when IBM shed its computer business and sold its laptop business to the Chinese.

Lenovo might not be going after a dying business, but it is going after a dying brand.  Rebranding is not a forté of Chinese business.  But a BlackBerry buy would not necessarily mean a resuscitation of the brand. It is more likely to be a Lenovo grab at smart, Waterloo patents.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Lenovo signed a nondisclosure agreement to examine the books of BlackBerry. The only possible explanation is that Lenovo is doing a form of due diligence before it makes a bid, if at all. According to Reuters, Lenovo will borrow roughly $1.5 billion from banks for the deal.

“We have to prepare enough fodder for the next move,” Yang told reporters.

Other rival companies that could court BlackBerry include SAP AG and Facebook.

Lenovo is the second-largest smartphone vendor in China after Samsung. It also has about 10% market share in Southeast Asia. Smartphones and tablets are the devices Lenovo plans to use to advance outside of the PC market in the U.S. in the near future.

BlackBerry founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin may also just opt to take the company private, providing they can find a partner to do so. The WSJ says Qualcomm might be that partner as BlackBerry gets put on life support.

BlackBerry shares are down 34.54% year-to-date ending Nov. 1 and down over 80% since its days as the “crack berry”, a term used to define the phone owners’ addiction to the then-famous BlackBerry keyboard.