Graham Pitcher

BlackBerry phones bite the dust as plug pulled on hardware development

Blogs
1 min read

At the beginning of 1999, Research In Motion (RIM) announced the BlackBerry, which it described as ‘a breakthrough wireless email solution for mobile professionals’. The adoption of email push technology meant BlackBerries became the ‘must have’ mobile phone for anyone who perceived themselves as having an important business role. Importantly, the BlackBerry was designed to be wearable, to operate 24 hours per day and to run on a single AA alkaline battery. The introduction brought with it CrackBerries – those seemingly addicted to using the device.

And its ‘must have’ status saw RIM boom. But the iPhone was looming. In a short time, BlackBerries went from ‘hero to zero’ and so did the fortunes of RIM, which changed its name to BlackBerry along the way.

Over the last five years or so, the company has appeared to suffer a lingering death. On a couple of occasions, it has attempted to get itself back in the game; the last two efforts saw it launch Android based phones.

Quietly, BlackBerry has been turning into a software company. Now, it looks like the days of the BlackBerry are over. According to the company’s latest financial information, it plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners.

It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like BlackBerry has finally bitten the dust.

BlackBerry