The release of the film, BlackBerry in 2023 had me thinking, what failed BlackBerry the phone that had a cemented position at the top of smartphone charts? For someone born in the year 2000, and one who took an interest in tech from an early age, BlackBerry was the pinnacle of innovation and the top choice for businessmen in the 2000s. You could not miss the boxy phones, the prominent Qwerty keyboards, and the berry logo. But what happened to this company, and how bad was it that we no longer hear from them today?

Beginnings

A quick Google search will reveal that BlackBerry's parent company, Research in Motion(RIM) was founded in 1984 by Douglas Fregin and Mike Lazaridis in Canada. Their first device out was the BlackBerry 850 email pager released in 1999. BlackBerry's first attempt at a piece of the telecommunication pie was well-timed as there were no prior handheld devices with the ability to read and write emails.

Peak BlackBerry

However, BlackBerry's real dominance was yet to be felt and came after the release of their smartphone, the BlackBerry 5810 in 2002. This was the businessman's gold. With telephone(calls), text messaging, web browsing, and email support, it created a new market, the smartphone market. It also set a precedent and dictated what future BlackBerry devices would look like. A somewhat large screen and a qwerty keyboard became a staple on their devices. Blackberry would go on and sell their devices in huge numbers.

The Touchscreen revolution.

Enter Apple and its genius CEO, the late Steve Jobs, and with them came the iPhone, a device that changed the smartphone market. Talk about disruptive tech. Tech pundits have different opinions on why this was the beginning of the end for BlackBerry. But I would summarize this in a few words. The next big thing, the touchscreen had been launched and it was against everything BlackBerry stood for, the Qwerty Keyboard. Referencing the movie, BlackBerry executives questioned what kind of people would want a phone without a keyboard. As it turned out, it was millions of people. But let us save that for the next chapter. BlackBerry so took the groundbreaking announcement of the iPhone, the introduction of a touchscreen and the seismic shift in smartphone technology as a passing wind.

The fall

Tech is an ever-evolving field. And the evolution is quick. You flinch, you lose. And that is what BlackBerry did. Simply put, they were not in tune with the times. And they were late to the party when they launched their touchscreens. They could only feed on crumbs at the time. Samsung and Apple had already run away with the market. BlackBerry was clutching at straws as the tide swept them away. In a last-ditch attempt at salvage their dominance, the subcontracted other companies to built them touchscreens which meant two things. First, quality assurance became an issue and the OS and applications that were built for their original phones struggled to fit these new touchscreens. Inevitably the grip on the market was reduced and BlackBerry slowly faded away.

In the interest of science, I would like to see another tech giant flinch. However, this is unlikely as brands such as Samsung are so big that they can afford a misstep and recover. They are also flexible to experiments such as folding phones(no pun intended). This shows the customer is always king and you have to shape up or shape out. Another brand that was bit hard by this bug was the Lumia brand and I will be sure to publish their story here soon.