Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has set up a committee to explore strategic alternatives, including joint ventures, partnerships or a sale of the company, Blackberry said on Monday.Former Goldman Sachs executive Timothy Dattels, a BlackBerry board member, will chair the new committee, which will also include Blackberry Chief Executive Thorsten Heins."Given the importance and strength of our technology, and the evolving industry and competitive landscape, we believe that now is the right time to explore strategic alternatives," Dattels said in a statement.BlackBerry pioneered on-your-hip email with its first smart phones and email pagers. But it has struggled to compete against the likes of Apple Inc and against phones using Google Inc's Android operating system. Its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones have failed to gain traction in a competitive market.
Apple Inc. (Apple) designs, manufactures and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players, and a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. Shares of AAPL remained unchanged at $454.45. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $385.10 and as high as $705.07. On average, 12175700 shares of AAPL exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 114081.
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