Following last Friday's announcement of an impending US$1 billion loss for the latest quarter (see - Catastrophic losses at BlackBerry: the final meltdown?) BlackBerry has announced that Fairfax Financial, which already owns 10 per cent of the stock, has offered $9 a share for the rest of it.

The offer, if accepted by early November, would take BlackBerry private and observers think it would then have a better chance of reorganising itself, probably by concentrating on its business customers and services and easing itself out of the consumer market.

But the offer is also designed to flush out other interested parties who might come to the table with more cash and different plans.

Many observers believe that the break-up value of the company is greater than the offer currently on the table.

Given the near-term sales outlook and the amount of cash BlackBerry now has in reserve, some sort of sale now appears to be the only option.