Last week, it was being rumoured that Samsung might acquire BlackBerry for around $7.5 billion, but the company denied it. Now, J.K. Shin, the head of Samsung’s mobile phone division has stated that the company might extend its partnership with BlackBerry. While speaking to The Wall Street Journal, he also reaffirmed that Samsung has no plans to acquire BlackBerry. During the interview, he said, “We want to work with BlackBerry and develop this partnership, not acquire the company.” It was rumoured that the South Korean smartphone giant might be interested in BlackBerry’s 44,000 patents, but Shin denied the alleged reason stating that Samsung has over 110,000 patents of its own. According to him, buying BlackBerry would be counter to the company’s strategy.
In November, Samsung had announced a strategic partnership with BlackBerry, where in the companies worked to improve data security to Android devices through KNOX and BES12. Shin said. “We are satisfied with the progress of Knox, including the quality of security and protection that it enables, and remain committed to Knox over the long term.” Samsung might integrate more security related technologies from BlackBerry, but the details haven’t been announced yet.