Rumors of a potential buyout of BlackBerry by Samsung popped up a few days ago, prompting a massive increase in BlackBerry’s stock price, but were quickly refuted by the company. Now Samsung has addressed the rumors, saying that, while it certainly wants to continue developing its partnership with the company, it has no intention of buying BlackBerry.
The head of Samsung’s mobile phone division stated today that the company could extend its current partnership with BlackBerry. However, he repeated what the company said last week that Samsung has no plans to acquire BlackBerry itself. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Samsung’s mobile phone leader J.K. Shin stated, “We want to work with BlackBerry and develop this partnership, not acquire the company.” In November, Samsung and BlackBerry announced the two companies would team up to provide Android device owners better end-to-end security via BES12 and Samsung KNOX. In today’s interview, 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.”