BlackBerry may run the Android operating system on a slider smartphone coming this fall, according to unnamed sources in a Reuters report.

In response to the report, four analysts offered mixed reactions. None was optimistic that an Android hardware strategy will work for the beleaguered BlackBerry, however.

BlackBerry commands just 1% of the smartphone market and has so far relied on its own operating system, with the latest iteration dubbed BlackBerry 10.

“I’d be surprised if they actually release an Android phone,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates an occasional columnist for Computerworld. “There is no real advantage for them to do so. Phones are a very low margin business, and Android would be even lower margins.” He noted that BlackBerry 10 phones already run Android apps.

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