Chen’s BlackBerry Revival Task Mirrors Sybase in 1990s
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Fifteen years after saving Sybase Inc. from its death spiral, John Chen is being called upon to revive a beaten-down BlackBerry Ltd.
Chen, 58, was named interim chief executive officer of BlackBerry yesterday after the collapse of a proposed $4.7 billion buyout. He takes over a company that’s lost 95 percent of its value since mid-2008, as the mobile world shifted to touch-screen smartphones and tablets and away from BlackBerry’s e-mail-centric devices.