The message is clear: BlackBerry is probably finished as a standalone company. The woebegone pioneer in mobile email has announced the ominous “strategic alternatives” process. That may culminate in the sale of the company or a tie-up with a heftier competitor. But the company’s flagging prospects are nothing new, so shareholders are right to wonder if BlackBerry would have been better off putting up the for-sale sign months ago.

Not necessarily. Two things stand out from the latest smartphone market share statistics from IDC. First, the latest BlackBerry devices, introduced to great fanfare, are not catching on. Blackberry’s mobile market share in the latest quarter slipped to below 3 per cent. Second, the market share data also show that there is space for a third mobile operating system after Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Windows mobile actually doubled its shipments to nearly 9m phones, primarily through sales of Nokia devices. This traction that Windows found is what BlackBerry was after. With a sizeable base of existing users (more than 70m people) and with a device that was favourably reviewed, BlackBerry had a puncher’s chance of survival. So it was right to go for the bronze medal when it had the chance.