14 ms·

Inside the fall of BlackBerry (2013)

27 points by mparramon 12y ago

jnetterf 12y ago
This is from September 2013.
api 12y ago
Don't emulate your competition. It's something I see over and over again. Blackberry had a huge loyal user base around its keyboard model, but they had to emulate the touch screens of Apple and Google since... well... that's what everyone else was doing. Result: they lose their loyal customer base who liked that they were different, and they failed to gain any new customers since people who liked touch screens were already using their competitors.
- seunosewa 12y ago
  This strategy may have sustained them a little bit longer, at best. They would still have faced a constant erosion of their loyal customer base, sales, and revenue because physical keyboards on phones are simply obsolete, etc.
- Touche 12y ago
  They were shedding marketshare long before they tried to do touch-screens. I think the reality of the situation was that there was only ever room for 1 luxury brand and 1 open alternative and that Palm was much closer to surviving than Blackberry ever was, despite how long Blackberry has stuck around.
- Ntrails 12y ago
  They never stopped having a model with a physical keyboard as far as I know? From my experience the only thing that kept it's user-base as high as it was is the glacial pace of change in large company central ITs. Yes, there was a small holdout of physical keyboard users, and yes they will exist for some time - but blackberry was not going to continue functioning at that scale.
VLM 12y ago
"The marketplace has abandoned our business model? OK, we'll just iterate endless new hardware and firmware until everyone leaves or a miracle happens." Its a very old story in IT. Some companies survive it, most don't.
- seunosewa 12y ago
  It's very difficult to replace an obsolete business model that was widely successful with a new one that is equally successful. Such success is rare enough that achieving it twice in a row requires a lot of luck or really incompetent competitors (which Android & iOS were certainly not!)
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Blackberry had very successful corporation-friendly software. They could try to fight BYOD, enter the BYOD fight with decent phones or they could embrace BYOD and make their server software compatible with Android and iOS and let corporations go on with unchanged processes.
nchelluri 12y ago
I read this article a while back. Probably my favorite part: > Mike Lazaridis was at home on his treadmill and watching television when he first saw the Apple iPhone in early 2007. There were a few things he didn't understand about the product. So, that summer, he pried one open to look inside and was shocked. It was like Apple had stuffed a Mac computer into a cellphone, he thought. > To Mr. Lazaridis, a life-long tinkerer who had built an oscilloscope and computer while in high school, the iPhone was a device that broke all the rules. The operating system alone took up 700 megabytes of memory, and the device used two processors. The entire BlackBerry ran on one processor and used 32 MB. Unlike the BlackBerry, the iPhone had a fully Internet-capable browser. That meant it would strain the networks of wireless companies like AT&T Inc., something those carriers hadn't previously allowed. RIM by contrast used a rudimentary browser that limited data usage.
- bluedino 12y ago
  Mr. Lazaridis let common sense stop him from building the iPhone. Much like the article where the author talks about his brain stopping him from creating YouTube. People are going to upload these massive video files and we're going to host them for free, and then they're going to sit and stream them all day? Malarky! http://prog21.dadgum.com/39.html http://prog21.dadgum.com/39.html
RA_Fisher 12y ago
They simply failed to realize it was all about the software.
- billyhoffman 12y ago
  Exactly. Blackberries were, at their heart, 2-way messaging devices with other features grafted on. iPhones were computer that just happened to have a "Phone" app and an "SMS" app.
xces2kill 12y ago
Blackberry is still alive and well! Send from my BlackBerry 10 Smartphone.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Alive, yes. Well, not at all.
initself 12y ago
I'm looking forward to the release of the Blackberry Classic and hope that turns the tide. My spidey sense tells me that people are starting more and more to appreciate old tech, diverse tech, tools that do one job and do it well. Hopefully instead of machines and platforms dying, their capabilities can be maintained and used by those who see their value.

27 points by mparramon 12y ago

This is from September 2013.

api 12y ago

Don't emulate your competition. It's something I see over and over again. Blackberry had a huge loyal user base around its keyboard model, but they had to emulate the touch screens of Apple and Google since... well... that's what everyone else was doing. Result: they lose their loyal customer base who liked that they were different, and they failed to gain any new customers since people who liked touch screens were already using their competitors.

seunosewa 12y ago
This strategy may have sustained them a little bit longer, at best. They would still have faced a constant erosion of their loyal customer base, sales, and revenue because physical keyboards on phones are simply obsolete, etc.
Touche 12y ago
They were shedding marketshare long before they tried to do touch-screens. I think the reality of the situation was that there was only ever room for 1 luxury brand and 1 open alternative and that Palm was much closer to surviving than Blackberry ever was, despite how long Blackberry has stuck around.
Ntrails 12y ago
They never stopped having a model with a physical keyboard as far as I know? From my experience the only thing that kept it's user-base as high as it was is the glacial pace of change in large company central ITs. Yes, there was a small holdout of physical keyboard users, and yes they will exist for some time - but blackberry was not going to continue functioning at that scale.

VLM 12y ago

"The marketplace has abandoned our business model? OK, we'll just iterate endless new hardware and firmware until everyone leaves or a miracle happens." Its a very old story in IT. Some companies survive it, most don't.

seunosewa 12y ago
It's very difficult to replace an obsolete business model that was widely successful with a new one that is equally successful. Such success is rare enough that achieving it twice in a row requires a lot of luck or really incompetent competitors (which Android & iOS were certainly not!)
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Blackberry had very successful corporation-friendly software. They could try to fight BYOD, enter the BYOD fight with decent phones or they could embrace BYOD and make their server software compatible with Android and iOS and let corporations go on with unchanged processes.

nchelluri 12y ago

I read this article a while back. Probably my favorite part: > Mike Lazaridis was at home on his treadmill and watching television when he first saw the Apple iPhone in early 2007. There were a few things he didn't understand about the product. So, that summer, he pried one open to look inside and was shocked. It was like Apple had stuffed a Mac computer into a cellphone, he thought. > To Mr. Lazaridis, a life-long tinkerer who had built an oscilloscope and computer while in high school, the iPhone was a device that broke all the rules. The operating system alone took up 700 megabytes of memory, and the device used two processors. The entire BlackBerry ran on one processor and used 32 MB. Unlike the BlackBerry, the iPhone had a fully Internet-capable browser. That meant it would strain the networks of wireless companies like AT&T Inc., something those carriers hadn't previously allowed. RIM by contrast used a rudimentary browser that limited data usage.

bluedino 12y ago
Mr. Lazaridis let common sense stop him from building the iPhone. Much like the article where the author talks about his brain stopping him from creating YouTube. People are going to upload these massive video files and we're going to host them for free, and then they're going to sit and stream them all day? Malarky! http://prog21.dadgum.com/39.html http://prog21.dadgum.com/39.html

RA_Fisher 12y ago

They simply failed to realize it was all about the software.

billyhoffman 12y ago
Exactly. Blackberries were, at their heart, 2-way messaging devices with other features grafted on. iPhones were computer that just happened to have a "Phone" app and an "SMS" app.

xces2kill 12y ago

Blackberry is still alive and well! Send from my BlackBerry 10 Smartphone.

rbanffy 12y ago
Alive, yes. Well, not at all.

initself 12y ago

I'm looking forward to the release of the Blackberry Classic and hope that turns the tide. My spidey sense tells me that people are starting more and more to appreciate old tech, diverse tech, tools that do one job and do it well. Hopefully instead of machines and platforms dying, their capabilities can be maintained and used by those who see their value.