We're gathered here today...

When I joined the corporate workforce in 2002, the dream was to buy two things, a bike and the coveted 'mobile' - sort of a "Mimetic desire" of the youth in my day. 

God smiled - and I bought a Suzuki Fiero and the Motorola P7389 - an early model cellular phone, which had the innovative design of a "brick with an antenna", which of course, I had unabashedly holstered to my hip. 

The indestructible Nokia 3311 followed (the younger sibling of the 3310), which true to legend survived several falls from my speeding Fiero, even after being run over by other vehicles - a shoutout to the legend.

But while the Nokia served its purpose, the true icon of the corporate world was no doubt the blackberry, by 2008 almost every manager had one - the Blackberry Curve. I remember when I first got a hold of the curve, the QWERTY keypad, the legendary BBM, and the cool quotient which nothing else could match.

As I rose up the corporate ladder, I managed to go through the Curve Series (up to the 9300 in 2010). The Bold Touch in 2012, the Q10 shortly thereafter, until I settled on the Blackberry Classic (2015). They brought back the trackpad and the vintage blackberry look and I said "stop talking and take my money!". 

I stuck with it for a couple of years, even while the rest of the world was moving on to the faceless iPhones and the android OS was ruling the roost. Half ignoring the truth and half hoping that Blackberry will find a way to compete. The naysayers would jeer, but we still had to hold on - because we were after all "the Blackberry boys" (remember the Vodafone ad)!

But compete, it didn't - stubbornly sticking to its misguided delusions about competition and a gross misunderstanding of the smartphone’s value proposition. One by one, its loyal band of customers switched, until only a few remained, barely hanging on. Then came some devastating news, Whatsapp was going to stop supporting the Blackberry, the nails were getting deeper in. BlackBerry soon announced that it will stop making its own phones as the now struggling company continued to focus on its software and security products.

What would we, the dwindling (I prefer 'niche') customer base do, we wondered - until TCL Communications took on the gauntlet a year later. Creating an Android Blackberry phone (with the keypad!) the Blackberry KeyOne was launched, keeping BlackBerry alive across most of the globe. It was a thing of beauty, crafted for the connoisseurs, a BB device with an android OS - what more could a BB fan(atic) ask for!

I remember staying up all night to buy the "limited edition black" on Amazon - first access, as a privileged Prime Customer. 

It put the Blackberry back on the map - A conversation starter at almost every meeting, an ice breaker even. I'd just have to pop out the phone and the questions would follow, "Is that a Blackberry?", "Do they still make these?", "Where can I get one?" - OK, I made up the last question, but you get the hint!

Alas, when something is too good to be true - it often is, after four years TCL Communications announced in Feb this year, that it won't manufacture any more BlackBerry phones after August 31. TCL's announcement marks the end of an era for a smartphone brand that once claimed 20% of the global phone market. They had announced the shutdown of BBM, the previous year itself.

No more Blackberry! 

But, I still have the KeyOne, I just have to hang on to it, until someone else picks up the gauntlet again, right.. unfortunately for me, I dropped the phone on Sunday - the Gorilla glass shattered like the dreams of millions! 

A broken phone's no big deal, you have a million options to choose from.. for the average phone user. But, for a blackberry addict like yours truly - it is a conundrum of epic proportions!

"A phone's a phone", said a friend of mine, "why make such a big deal!"

Well, the deal is when you've used the QWERTY keypad for a dozen or so years and have little to no interest in a big screen device or the specs of the camera, the market is quite limited.

For me, and users like me, the blackberry was the ultimate work phone, I could start drafting an email on my laptop and then complete it on my Blackberry, in a meeting somewhere else, and you wouldn't know the difference. 

BlackBerry had helped lay the foundation for the modern smartphone, a stalwart - who refused to adapt!

But I guess, all good things must come to an end and so should this post!

So ..we are gathered here today, to bid adieu, to my Blackberry device.. a pioneer, who like many others before it, fell from grace because it failed to innovate.

Only to adorn the annals of corporate literature, with stories of what could have been and how they should have adapted. So others can learn a lesson or two on how the future will turn in unexpected ways and how we should stay abreast of change or fade away into oblivion.

Goodbye, "my precious"!

Now on to the next.