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The city of Waterloo, Ont. signed a fresh contract this week to outfit city officials with BlackBerry handsets until at least 2017. The new three-year contract was signed on Monday, according to the Waterloo Record and other.
Yet come Tuesday, city official may have been second guessing the decision - that's when BlackBerry announced plans to sell its real estate holdings across the country, a move that includes its long-time campus in the southern Ontario city.
READ MORE: BlackBerry plans to sell Canadian real estate
That decision appears to open up the prospect that municipal officials could be toting Z10s and Q10 phones long after the moving trucks have pulled out of Waterloo.
But probably not: BlackBerry said in the announcement it 'remains committed to being headquartered in Waterloo and having a strong presence in Canada along with other global hubs.'
Confidence is also firming up in the new management team's ability to halt the company's prolonged slide. (Just look at BlackBerry's stock price since December for proof.)
The real estate deal (which will raise potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to help fund the turnaround) is also a leaseback, meaning BlackBerry will remain a tenant of its former properties.
And in fact, city officials have been aware BlackBerry was mulling a sale since at least the fall when reports surfaced about the tech firm approaching commercial real estate brokers.
Moreover, the new service agreement is for the 'continued provision of BlackBerry and cellular services' through its carrier, Bell Canada. Of the 370 devices the city owns and pays for, 204 are BlackBerry phones. Fifty of the 204 are new BlackBerry 10 phones under the city's 'Pilot Project Group.'
Former co-chief executive, vice-chairman and founder Mike Lazaridis, a native of Windsor, Ont., founded the one-time smartphone market leader in the late 1990s, growing a campus in Waterloo to more than 26 buildings.
The company was already in the process of selling five area properties to the University of Waterloo.
© Shaw Media, 2014
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