A quick look at the BlackBerry Z30 at #BBJamAsia

By Corey Herscu

Hong Kong: After 15-hours of travel, I stepped off the plane in Hong Kong today in a surreal daze. This would mark both my first time in Hong Kong and my first time attending a Jam developer session. Godspeed, let's do this.

As I meandered over to the Asia World Expo (where the event is taking place), I couldn't help but notice the smiles and positive energy emanating from each and every person wearing a lanyard.

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BlackBerry sold to Fairfax Financial for US $4.7 Billion

The die has been cast. The inevitable has happened. BlackBerry, once Canada's most valuable company and a pioneer of the highly competitive smartphone and mobile industry has been sold to Toronto-based FairFax Financial Holdings for US $4.7 billion or $9.00 a share.

The next step is to take BlackBerry private, move away from consumer end of the business and focus on prosumer and enterprise segment of the market.

The company also said Friday it plans to streamline it sproduct portfolio,  focus on offering only two high-end devices and two entry-level handsets going forward, with emphasis on the business market.

Trading of the company’s stock was halted last Friday. BlackBerry shares plummeted after the company announced Friday a loss of nearly $1 billion and layoffs of 4,500 workers. An attempt to introduce its once dominant BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) service to rival iPhone and Android devices this past weekend, was halted as well because a leaked version of the app was apparently causing problems. Stay tuned for more developments.

BlackBerry lays off 4,500 employees as stock trading is halted

Updated on Friday, September 20, 2013 at 8:09PM by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Troubling news coming out of Waterloo today. BlackBerry has announced it will cut 4,500 jobs across its operations and will report a second-quarter loss of $950 million. As a result of this news, trading of BlackBerry stock was halted Friday aftertoon pending the revised outlook. Shares for BlackBerry were dowb more than 17 per cent at the close of trading at $8.73.

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BBM officially landing on Android Sept 21st, followed by iOS on the 22nd

Someone's ears must have been itching over in Waterloo today. Hours after it was reported that cross-platform BBM would potentially be launching on Friday, BlackBerry sent a tweet out (as seen above) confirming that BBM for Android (4.0 and higher) would be launching this Saturday Sept 21st, followed by iOS on Sunday the 22nd. 

Who's excited!

See the tweet here

Thanks for the tip, Paul!