Reports and the company’s own actions are starting to suggest that this is far more than a rumor.
While there have yet to be any official confirmations that a BlackBerry Android smartphone is in the works, by the time of the writing of this article, the actions of the company, itself, are starting to point specifically in that direction.
BlackBerry has, for instance, purchased two domains that are directly related to the Android operating system.
At the end of last week, it was reported that two BlackBerry Android related domain names were snatched up by the company, adding more fuel to the fire under claims that the company will be releasing a smartphone with the Google mobile operating system. The struggling Canadian handset maker has now purchased “AndroidSecured.net” and “AndroidSecured.com”. These were only the icing on the cake following a broad spectrum of other claims that the platform would soon be found on the company’s devices.
This was a particularly interesting purchase after the company specifically refused to confirm a Blackberry Android device.
Recently, the CEO of BlackBerry, John Chen, outright declined the chance to confirm whether that handset maker was working on a device that would run on the Android operating system. Speculation that had been fierce, before, is now all the more intense following the purchase of the two domains by the company. Over the last month, Chen has said on at least two different occasions that the only way that he would think about putting out a mobile device based on Google’s mobile OS is if he were able to “secure Android.”
Considering the nature of the two domain names that have been purchased, it does look as though the company feels that it either has already done this, or that it will be able to do it at some point in the not too distant future. Certainly, it looks as though it is something that the company is focusing on achieving at the moment.
When asked to comment on the BlackBerry Android domain name purchases, the company downplayed the move in an email that said that “BlackBerry frequently registers domain names to support the breadth of our cross-platform portfolio. Android is an important part of our cross-platform enterprise software strategy.”
