The Up's and Down's of BlackBerry

Blackberry was once king of the Smartphone world and sold more than 50 million units at its peak.

In 2011, the Canadian telecom company was initially named research in motion and had tens of millions of customers. It started out creating pagers and handsets before coming out with its first Smartphone, complete with the iconic keyboard that became popular within 15 years.

Once, Blackberry controlled 50% of the smartphone market in the US and 20% globally. Their phones were everywhere but demand rapidly declined. And in 2016, Blackberry stopped manufacturing their phones. So, what happened?

In 1984, two Canadian engineering students, Mike and Douglas, formed Research In Motion (RIM). In the late 1900s, the Canadian phone company Rogers contracted RIM to work on its mobile techs network, a system specifically designed for messaging, giving RIM a leg up as an early expert in mobile messaging. At first, the company mainly dabbled in random projects and even a film editing system that won an Oscar in 1990.

Zooming ahead to the year 1996,?RIM created its first two-way pager. For the next few years, the company iterated on that design, gradually adding features like a colour display, Wi-Fi, instant messaging, and web. The company unveiled its first model in 2002 which users were able to scroll around the screen.?

Blackberry became indispensable to the wealthy and powerful. Having a blackberry was a status symbol! That's where it got the name CrackBerry! People have become almost addicted to it!

The Blackberry had a simple design and easy learning curve and was marketed to business professionals. The keyboard made it possible for users to work outside the office and on the go. Users could do anything they might need to do at a computer or laptop. The BBM messaging service was vital to Blackberry's success because they figured out that users wanted to connect to people instantly. They wanted to be able to message back and forth without limits, and being able to use BBM added you to that exclusive club of Blackberry only users.

The convenience of this, paired with inclusivity status, soon paid off by the year 2007. Blackberry was pulling in more than $3 billion a month with a net income of $631 million. Blackberry had government contracts and big business deals, which laid a path for Blackberry to dominate the US market.

So, with all those contracts and substantial dollar signs, the company had nothing to worry about. Right? Beware the sharks!

Competitors soon saw an opportunity and the blackberry keyboard became their focus. Apple leapt in and got rid of all the buttons and just made a giant touch screen, the iPhone. Revolutionary!?

The Apple iPhone was something consumers had never seen before and comprised of an entire touch screen device. It was a giant leap in innovation at that point for the mobile market. Blackberry was still using physical keyboards on their phones at that point, but the iPhone didn't overtake them immediately. It just helped put a nail in their coffin.

Blackberry didn't view the iPhone as competition because it didn't cater to the business market. So, it carried on business-as-usual, and soon RIM released the Blackberry flip phone in 2008, which was quickly followed by the Blackberry storm- its first touchscreen device. The storm was reviewed and trashed! Users said it was a definite fail because of the sluggish phone performance, but the Blackberry phone continued to keep it on the shelves.

The iPhone was proved to be more expensive than the Blackberry and exclusive to a particular network provider until 2011, forcing customers in the US to either switch providers or pick a new phone. And very simply, people didn't want to give up the keyboard feature. So, Blackberry was doing ok for a while; however, RIM underestimated how quickly the smartphone market was changing.

There was a newly updated iPhone every year, and other smartphones were beginning to be rolled out. RIM tried hard to keep up. They rolled out innovative new devices, like the playbook, tablet and torch, but the devices were not well received.?

In June 2010, Apple released the iPhone four. Apple's phone sales surpass Blackberry for the second time. Blackberry was slow to change its company, and its ethos was built up around designing a great product that worked and then making iterations to it.?

Slowly, they would add small features over time, but they weren't shooting for significant sweeping changes that would shock and delight consumers.

Blackberry phones missed out on many features that appeal to consumers, like front and back cameras. These shortcomings ultimately led to RIMs downfall. Their global market share began a downward spiral going from 20% in 2009 to less than 5% in 2012. RIM finally released a spec competitive touchscreen phone in 2013; unfortunately, it was too delayed.

That year the company RIM officially changed its brand name to Blackberry. Blackberry thought its loyal customers would hold on to the cracking innovation that was coming. Spoiler alert: they didn't wait around!

People were locked into either iPhone or Android. In the last quarter of 2016, out of 4302million smartphones sold worldwide, only 207,900 were Blackberry devices.

Which officially made the RIM smartphone market share 0%. And in 2016, Chinese consumer electronic company TCL essentially bought the Blackberry phone brand, which led to their departure from the Smartphone- 14 years after the release of its first phone.?

Today's Blackberry phones still have the iconic keyboard, but run-on Android, not the Blackberry. They are giving users the app store and much more customization options. The phones are also marketed to people who want enhanced privacy and security features with the marketing materials, spotlighting, the phones, security protections, and battery life.

Whether we continue to see a new Blackberry's entering the market or not, the phones and brand will always be a brick in the foundation of smartphone history, a fitting place for a company.

So set in its ways that it's cemented its demise.?