No motion1/16/2024 ![]() ![]() So there was Mike Lazaridis, four years post-iPhone, sitting with BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones for a quickie interview and product demo. ![]() Surrounded by a lackluster selection of new BlackBerrys and despite being hampered by delays, the PlayBook offered one glimmer of excitement in the company's portfolio. Apple had made the smartphone a consumer device RIM decided it would make the tablet an enterprise device. With the declaration "amateur hour is over," it promised to bring enterprise-level functionality to what had previously been a consumer market. It represented a bold transition for the company, replacing its aging OS with one based on QNX, which it had acquired in 2010. Apple had already released the iPad 2 by the time RIM offered its response, the tablet Lazaridis held in his hands. The mobile landscape shifted dramatically - new players, new customers, and new alliances - and RIM made costly missteps scrambling to adjust.Īpple's iPad similarly re-defined the market for tablet computers, and then dominated it, a host of Android-powered competitors following in its wake. Apple's success opened the door for another large, deep-pocketed competitor: Google, with the acquisition and development of Android. Apple expanded the market by building a smartphone not just for business people, but for the great mass of well-heeled, tech-hungry consumers. Success had come almost naturally to the company, until five years ago, when Apple released the first iPhone and upended RIM's long-held strategy of appealing primarily to email-addicted professionals. The company was Research In Motion, the Canadian firm whose BlackBerry virtually created the smartphone market. Last April, Mike Lazaridis sat in a BBC studio, holding his company's future in his hands: a svelte seven-inch tablet, black, with the word "BlackBerry" emblazoned across its front. The past year has been especially hard on the once-innovative RIM, but it may be at a turning point. With Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone gaining market share, the Waterloo, Ontario, company finds itself in a battle for relevancy. Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry phones pioneered wireless email, no longer holds the commanding heights in the smartphone market. Published in early 2012, this story covers the company's history right up to the launch of its latest, long-awaited operating system. Editor's note: With the now-renamed BlackBerry back in the news for all the wrong reasons, from large layoffs to an investment deal that has a new CEO stepping in, now's a good time to revisit our take on the smartphone pioneer's rise and fall. ![]()
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