Patrick Rich AP Economics Mr. Klurfeld 1/12/2015 The BlackBerry Story Before 1995, barely anyone had heard of a small company called Research in Motion Limited. By 2010, the same company, then known as BlackBerry Limited, had rocketed to the front of the business and consumer communications markets. Now, BlackBerry has faded back into obscurity, remembered by many but used by a paltry few. Yet in the span of that fifteen years, BlackBerry grew into one of the largest and most profitable telecommunications companies in the world. In Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, journalists Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff detail the meteoric rise of the small tech company, and its …show more content…
It wasn’t until 1992 that things really began to look up for the small tech company. The reason? Jim Balsillie. Balsillie, described by Mike Lazaridis as “a driven, confident executive who understood banking, finance, deal making, and, best of all, how to sell a product”, represented everything that had been missing from RIM (pg 36). They had the technical knowledge, but they needed the business acumen. Jim Balsillie brought that with him. Lazaridis knew that “innovation could not thrive without corporate support and effective commercial strategies” (pg 23); Mike provided the innovation, and Jim the corporate and commercial support. A brilliant and aggressive business strategist with degrees from the University of Toronto and the Harvard Business School, Balsillie brought an environment of professionalism and a harder work ethic with him as well. The businessman drove the engineers of RIM to work faster and smarter than they had previously, and this produced …show more content…
A study from MIT’s graduate business school “warned that chronic BlackBerry users were developing ‘an inability to disengage from work’” (pg 116). The BlackBerry had transitioned from a business-focused product to a consumer-friendly one, while retaining the instant communication features that had made it so popular in the first place. In early 2004, the millionth BlackBerry was purchased. In late 2004, the two millionth BlackBerry was purchased. RIM infuriated carriers by remotely updating BlackBerry phones to connect to web browsers and instant messaging services, thereby eliminating the use of cellular networks in favor of mobile data. Fortunately, carriers soon found the data traffic industry to be equally as lucrative, and BlackBerry once again moved cellular technology onward into the future. Unfortunately, not all was sunny in the halls of Research in