The Globe And Mail Documents The Fall Of BlackBerry

If you have about 30 minutes free today, I’d take a look at an article in The Globe And Mail titled “Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt“. Among other things, it notes the following:

  • Shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon turned to Motorola and Google instead.
  • In 2012, one-time co-CEO Jim Balsillie quit the board and cut all ties to BlackBerry in protest after his plan to shift focus to instant-messaging software, which had been opposed by founder Mike Lazaridis, was killed by current CEO Thorsten Heins.
  • Mr. Lazaridis opposed the launch plan for the BlackBerry 10 phones and argued strongly in favour of emphasizing keyboard devices. But Mr. Heins and his executives did not take the advice and launched the touchscreen Z10, with disastrous results

It speaks directly to those on the inside including Balsillie to get to what happened. It’s an interesting read into to the downfall of the company who pretty much invented the smartphone. I highly recommend it.

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