BLACKBERRY
TOPICS THAT WILL BE COVERED
Introduction :About the Company and Founders of RIM(RESEARCH IN MOTION)
How BlackBerry came to existence
How BlackBerry Captured Smartphone Market around the World First Success of
RIM – The BlackBerry “Pearl” series
Reasons that led to The Downfall of BlackBerry
Conclusion
RIM(RESEARCH IN MOTION)
Blackberry was designed and developed by a Canadian
based company called Research In Motion (RIM) in 1999.
RIM is a Canadian multinational company that develops telecommunication and wireless equipment's
RIM also provides secure and high reliability software for industrial applications and mobile device
management (MDM)
BlackBerry's software and hardware products are used worldwide by various government's agencies and by
car makers and industrial plants throughout the world, much of this activity being unseen by thepublic.
RIM is headquartered It was founded by Mike
in Waterloo, Ontario, Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin later left the
Canada. Fregin in 1984 company in 2007.
In 1992 Lazaridis hired Jim Balsillie, and In November 2013, John S.
Lazaridis and Balsillie served as co- Chen took over as CEO
CEOs until January 22, 2012
BLACKBERRY
How BlackBerry Came to Existence
In 1999, RIM introduced the BlackBerry 850 pager.
The device is known as Blackberry because its black button keys on the black color phone looks like
Blackberry fruit seed.
The device could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server using its complementary
server software, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).
This feature set the stage for future enterprise-oriented products from the company
BLACKBERRY LIFE CYCLE
ASSESMENT
How BlackBerry Captured Smartphone Market
BlackBerry Pager set the stage for future enterprise-oriented products from the company
The first Blackberry Smartphone “BlackBerry 957” was launched in April 2000
The BlackBerry OS platform and BES continued to increase in functionality
The incorporation of encryption and S/MIME support helped BlackBerrydevices
gain increased usage by governments and businesses
During fiscal 1999-2001, total assets declared in the RIM's balance sheet grew
eight-fold due to massive capacity expansion.
RIM Decides To Go GLOBAL - Introduction of the Pearl series
RIM soon began to introduce BlackBerry devices aimed towards theconsumer
market as well
So now Blackberry was not just limited to corporate and govtofficials
RIM introduces BlackBerry Pearl 8100 —the first BlackBerry phone to
include multimedia features such as a camera.
The introduction of the Pearl series was highly successful
Blackberry introduces two more versions Curve 8300 series and Bold 9000
Extensive carrier
partnerships fuelled the
rapid expansion of
BlackBerry users globally
in both enterprise and
consumer markets.
DOWNFALL
INTERNAL FACTORS
Blackberry suffered the loss of many key figures in its management, during its attempts to revive its
market share.
Jim Balsillie, the co-CEO in 2012, quit the board of directors.
Mike Lazaridis was against Jim’s idea to shift Blackberry’s focus to its instant-messaging software (BBM)
CEO Thorsten Heins decides to kill the idea due to pressure from Mike Lazaridis
Founder Mike Lazaridis, was against the launching of Blackberry’s touchscreen phone, Blackberry Z10
There is a certain culture we follow at RIM and Z10
would not fit into it. (Basically they were against
launching a phone that did not have keyboard. They
believed that, keyboard was the signature feature of
Blackberry devices)
BLACKBERRY WAS FACING INNOVATIVE COMPETITION
Apple Introduces iPhone in 2007
According to Mike Lazaridis
“It looked like Apple Mac computer stuffed into a
cellphone”
The iPhone operating system took up 700 MB
of memory and used two processors.
BlackBerry, the device ran on one processor and used 32 MB of memory
iPhone had a fully Internet-capable browser “SAFARI”
which was missing in BlackBerry
Wireless companies like AT&T Inc had started introducing
DATA packages to iPhone users.
RIM, it was using an elementary browser that limited data usage.
Users could not take full advantage of DATA package on BlackBerry Phones
FAILURE OF IDENTIFYING CONSUMER AND FUTURE
TRENDS
Apple had signed an exclusive deal with its competitor AT&T and therefore Verizon Wireless
was frozen on iPhones.
In the past RIM’s smartphones had been a huge hit for Verizon Wireless
Verizon executives approached RIM in June 2007, and asked if RIM could develop “iPhone Killer ”
Verizon also agreed, it would back the U.S. launch with a massive marketing campaign
The product was the BlackBerry Storm – It hit the U.S. markets just before Thanksgiving in 2008
It was RIM’s first touchscreen device and was difficult to operate.
The device had a single processor and was slow and buggy
RIM had failed to deliver the “iPhone Killer ” Verizon Wireless decided to abandon the storm
campaign.
Verizon now turned to Google Inc. and its new operating system, Android
Android operating smartphones started to steal market share from Palm and Microsoft and
eventually RIM
Consumer Demand for Apps in Smartphones was Increasing
BlackBerry failed to anticipate the emergence of the “app economy,” which drove massive adoption of
iPhone and Android-based devices
Consumers no longer cared much for battery life or security features, they cared about apps.
Apple and Google’s operating systems were built for making
it easy on external programmers to create apps.
BlackBerry apps built on old programming languages were uglier and stifled creativity
RIM also exerted strict control over developers, costing BlackBerry trending apps such as Instagram
and Tumblr
CONSECUTIVE FAILURES OF NEW PRODUCTS
RIM’s entry to Tablet & The Failure of PlayBook
RIM was now focusing on building a device like Apple’s successful iPad tablet
Developers at RIM continued to face difficulty with integrating the tablet’s system with the
smartphones, as both had a differ operating system
This delayed the release of RIM’s PlayBook
It proved to be “an awkward accessory” to RIM’s smartphones, and lacked e-mail, contacts and apps
OTHER FACTORS
Google makes its Android operating system available for free
BlackBerry was unable to drop prices to retain the market share it was losing to Android
Android was made free to any handset maker causing BlackBerry to lose orders massively
With RIM’s new products all failing, it continued to lose market share to Apple and Android phones
Growing demands of customers who wanted to surf the Internet on their phones,
RIM planned to release its 4G phone
This was the BlackBerry 10, which was another product that was delayed
Thus 2011 became a turning point for RIM, with its stock price falling from $69 (Canadian) in February
to less than $15 by the year ’s end
CONCLUSION
The main reasons for the demise of BlackBerry was probably its unwillingness to let go of
its key successes such as its signature keyboard devices, lack of innovation and failure to
anticipate how the smartphone revolution was going to carry forward. It was “more
concerned with protecting what it already had instead of conquering new lands”
(Savov, 2016)
Thank You
