BlackBerry won’t be back—OnwardMobility reportedly loses brand license

Enlarge / OnwardMobility's teaser image. A phone never arrived in 2021. (credit: OnwardMobility)

BlackBerry phones will remain dead.

In 2020, we reported on OnwardMobility, a startup that licensed the BlackBerry brand for smartphones and planned to release a new QWERTY Android phone. There was a lot to worry about when the company missed its promised 2021 deadline, and just last month, it had to make a blog post titled "Contrary to popular belief, we are not dead."

Well, the company's plans are now dead. Both Daniel Bader of Android Police and Kevin Michaluk (the founder of Crackberry) are independently reporting that OnwardMobility has lost its Blackberry license. Bader says, "According to sources, BlackBerry is looking to further distance itself from its days as a smartphone vendor after selling the remainder of its mobile patent portfolio for $600 million earlier this month."

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