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Ian Austen has an interesting interview in the NYT with the Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, authors of "Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry," that offers details about the emotional and business turmoil surrounding the collapse of the once-dominant smartphone maker's fall into near market obscurity. Most interesting is BlackBerry's initial reaction to the iPhone. "It was an interesting contrast to the team at Google, which was working on smartphones at the time. Google seemed to realize immediately that the world had changed and scrapped its keyboard plans. At BlackBerry, they sort of dismissed the need to do anything about it in the short term," says McNish. "One thing that they misunderstood is how the game had changed when AT&T announced its deal with Apple," added Silcoff. "BlackBerry had built its whole business model on offering carriers products that worked efficiently on their networks. The first thing Mike Lazaridis said when he saw an iPhone at home is that this will never work, the network can't sustain it. What they misunderstood is that the consumer demand would make carriers invest in their networks."
"One of the big reveals for us in the book was the enormous power wielded by carriers in the smartphone race," says McNish. "In the wake of Apple's ascendency, carriers have seen their clout and economic value significantly diminished as customers spend more of their smartphone money on Apple phones, apps and other content than they do on carrier bills. It is one of the greatest wealth transfers in our generation."
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aclarke on Friday May 29 2015, @12:51PM
I don't work at RIM/Blackberry, but I live in the same region so I'm practically surrounded by buildings, employees, news articles, etc. I remember when the iPhone came out. I thought it was going to eat the Blackberry for breakfast, but I assumed RIM would take the threat seriously and up their game. All that came from RIM was a bunch of hot air about them not being worried. I assumed (hoped?) at the time that this was a public façade covering up a whole bunch of internal scurrying about, coming up with some revolutionary better products of their own.
When the iPhone 3G debuted as Canada's first iPhone, I lined up and bought one on launch day. It replaced an old Blackberry, and the difference was nothing short of revolutionary. Still, RIM was going on about how they weren't worried. It was frustrating to watch RIM plough along like a barge without a pilot, wondering what in the world they were thinking and what it was going to do to the technology sector in Waterloo and the overall economy of the region when they imploded.
I know there were a lot of smart people working at RIM, but when they finally did publicly react to iPhones and Android, what they released was really an embarrassment. They promised the world with BlackBerry 10, they promised all this great stuff with the Playbook, and then they released the Playbook without even an email client. BlackBerry 10 never made it to the Playbook. Their OS X connectivity software was terrible, when it was finally even released. Software updates were months late and buggy and missing features when they arrived. Why was a company staffed with world-class software developers putting out such third-rate software? I assume a lack of steady direction, poor management, and sinking morale must have had something to do with it.
In the end, BlackBerry seems to have landed more softly than I thought they would, although maybe they haven't truly hit rock bottom yet. Many of the smart people who used to work there have moved on to do good things with other companies. Office space rentals prices have probably dropped, but it hasn't cratered the housing market like I thought it might. I still shake my head in amazement at the incredible hubris by RIM's senior management as they sat on top of a huge mountain of market share and let it all wash away beneath them with their "what, me worry?" attitudes.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Friday May 29 2015, @02:52PM
Rim/BB's first direct response to the iPhone, the full-touchscreen Blackberry Storm, was a colossal disaster. A friend went through 2 of them in a year, it was crash-prone, the UI was inconsistent and glitchy, and worst of all, they still catered to the dictates of the carrier and allowed them to block stuff like Bluetooth, and excluded wifi support.
That's right, no wifi at all. Data had to go through the carrier. In a phone model introduced almost 2 years after the iPhone was announced.
My friend almost left BB forever after that, but has amazingly stayed with them to this day. To be fair BB has improved their offerings a bit since then, though their QA on hardware and software still leaves a bit to be desired.