Senior executives at ailing smartphone maker BlackBerry met with Facebook executives to find out whether the social media company might be interested in bidding for the Canadian firm.
News of the meeting was reported in the Wall Street Journal, but the extent of Facebook's interest in bidding for BlackBerry is unclear. However, it makes Facebook the fourth potential suitor for the company after it effectively put itself up for sale at the beginning of September.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already denied that he wants the social media company to produce its own phone, and has instead sought to ensure that Facebook has a key application on as many smartphones as possible.
Its decision to release custom Android software, dubbed Facebook Home, pre-installed on the HTC First was not a resounding success.
However, if it were to hold further discussion with BlackBerry it may re-ignite rumours over a fully-fledged Facebook phone.
The only bid to emerge so far is one led by BlackBerry's biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial. BlackBerry has agreed to the US$4.7bn takeover bid, but developments have not been made public since BlackBerry signed a letter of intent.
Fairfax holds a 10 per cent stake in BlackBerry and needs to arrange financial backing to support its bid.
Co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, who hold a combined eight per cent stake, are also thought to be considering a counter-bid for the smartphone maker.
Facebook might be interested in bidding for BlackBerry as part of either of those two consortia, though.
Lenovo is another company that has been linked with a bid for BlackBerry, although whether the Canadian government would approve a takeover by the Chinese PC, server and smartphone maker is open to debate.
Earlier this month, BlackBerry moved to reassure customers, by writing to them and taking out full-page press advertisements telling them that it isn't going out of business. "You can continue to count on BlackBerry," the letter emphasised.
