Wow, so innovation is only when something is so radically different that it's almost a whole new product category? Well then, sorry to 90% of the startups out t

Wow, so innovation is only when something is so radically different that it's almost a whole new product category? Well then, sorry to 90% of the startups out there, but you aren't innovative. Other things that aren't innovative - new programming languages, HTML 5, electric cars, green energy, and everything else that doesn't involve Steve Jobs introducing a new product line. I think this article sets up the wrong understanding of what happened at BlackBerry - the corporate structure wasn't setup to compete with Android at the low end and Apple at the high end. Another way to look at it is that BBY never had much competition in the smartphone space before iPhone and Android. That is to say, there were a few smartphones out there, and they weren't very good. BlackBerry was a novel product executed well. iPhone and Android made email and messaging just another app. BlackBerry, the company, was NOT designed to compete with the iPhone or Galaxy high end phones while competing with a plethora of low end Android devices. It grew up while competing with feature phones or smartphones with mediocre to terrible enterprise services. The whole company is structured around selling to companies and governments (like Microsoft). That means tons and tons of enterprise salespeople. Tons of corporate bureaucracy and overhead. You don't even have to look very far to find stories of the corporate nature of BBY hamstringing its efforts. Case in point, BBY had a huge profit shortfall and so they are firing 40% of their workforce. How do you as a company wake up one day and realize that 40% of the staff to go? How do you run a company where almost half of the employees can be let go and not materially impact the business? If BBY is sitting on 2x as many employees as they actually need, then I have no doubt that is hamstringing the company and if nothing else it sets up the wrong cost structure for the entire business. BlackBerry had a chance to compete in the high end - like Samsung and Sony do now, but instead they derided touch interfaces and took way too long to ship QNX on phones. What they have now looks pretty good, but they wasted like 5-6 years getting there. If it took Samsung, LG, Sony, or HTC 5 years to ship a competitive device we'd be seeing the same story play out. Case in point, Nokia. It took them like 4 years to make a real competitor to the iPhone, then they switched everything to Windows Phone, now they are being sold for pennies on the dollar. It is ridiculous to blame the lack of mobile innovation for BlackBerry's demise, but the truth is BlackBerry's bloated structure and inability to even keep pace with the apparent "lack of innovation" in mobile technology killed them. BlackBerry's phones just weren't competitive with iPhone, Android, or even Windows Phone until very recently. Couple non-competitive products with a terrible cost structure and bad management and you have a recipe for a business just waiting to fail.