Rise and fall of the history of the BlackBerry Empire: Slow development of self-styled software appearance obsolete

BEIJING, Feb. 23, according to foreign media reports, the recent blog of science and technology The Verge author BlackBerry smartphone manufacturers rise and decline made a detailed report. The article believes that, RIM after the success of self-confidence and slow development is the main reason for its decline.

The full text is summarized as follows:

Troubled

In April 2011, four years after Apple introduced the iPhone, Mike Lazaridis, the father of the BlackBerry smartphone and RIM co-chief executive, was dissatisfied with reporters' Middle East countries questioned the security of BlackBerry, the interview was suspended ahead of schedule. In the interview, Lazaridis replied: "You hinted that we have security issues, but in fact we have no security problems at all ... We just happened to be targeted because we have been successful around the world. With iconic products, business people in use, leaders in use, celebrities in use, consumers in use, young people in use, we're just being targeted. "

Within a month after the interview, RIM suffered a series of strikes. The outside world is frustrated with its tablet PC Playbook, which lags behind competitors in its hardware design despite its lack of calendar, contacts and native email capabilities. Although RIM promises subsequent upgrades to deliver these capabilities, it simply missed one of its iconic e-mail features and was unthinkable. However, RIM still argues that users are a bit overreacting to the lack of e-mail functionality, which is not a core feature for business users or webmail users at all. Facts have proved that consumers do not buy it, the sale of Playbook is very bleak.

Accompanied by poor product sales and the morale of staff being hit in July of the same year, RIM announced the reduction of 2,000 employees, accounting for 10.5% of the total number of employees. In addition a large number of executives also have to leave. Keith Pardy, chief marketing officer, leaves in March. Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison retires in July after prolonged sick leave. Brain Wallace, vice president of digital marketing and media, went to Samsung Mobile. Ryan Bidan, senior product manager at Playbook, also joined Samsung. Mike Kirkup, director of developer relations, left in August. Tyler Lessard, vice president of global alliance and developer relations, also left the company in September.

RIM still has solid BlackBerry network services in spite of its poor Playbook sales, layoffs and executives leaving. But in October, the BlackBerry server suffered a four-day global crash. A couple of days ago, RIM's PR was in a state of silence, until Lazaridis made a video apology on the third day, but the anger of the consumer was already over. According to data released at the summer's earnings conference, RIM lost $ 50 million in revenue.

With everyone looking forward to the release of BlackBerry 10 operating system postponed until 2012, and the so-called "super mobile phone" delay. By the end of 2011, RIM shares had shrunk by 75%, setting a new lows in seven years. Housing leaks every partial lean Yin, RIM really bad situation to drink cold water will be the point of Sealing. Although RIM North American market shrinks, but still occupy a strong position in the world. In November 2011, RIM opened a BlackBerry 9790 phone in Jakarta, Indonesia, and imposed a 50% discount on the first-thousand buyers. The move caused crowd disturbances and injured many others.

Although the riot in Jakarta is a public relations nightmare, at least it turns out that some people still want to buy a BlackBerry. However, the last bad news about RIM in 2011 made the public feel more negative about it. On December 5, two executives at RIM were drunk to board Air Canada's flight from Toronto to Beijing. After the flight, some of them were out of control and began to drink alcoholic beverages. The pilot of Air Canada then decided to return to allow other Passenger off machine. The two executives were subsequently arrested for misconduct.

Why is this? RIM such a respectable and innovative enterprises that year, in fact, is also invented the smart phone company will end up such a fate, it can comeback?

RIM rise

Mike Razalidis, founder of RIM, studied electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo in his youth. Excited by the sheer volume of engineering resources available at the university for Lazaridis, who loved engineering since childhood, At the age of 23 Lazaridis founded his own company, after considering several names, eventually named the company Research In Motion.

Early RIMs were no different from startups in general: small offices and overnight work. The DigiSync film barcode reader developed by the company addresses the headache issues for film editors. To this end the company won the Emmy and Oscar Technical Achievement Award.

Although widely acclaimed, DigiSync is not the interest of Lazaridis, and he is interested in wireless data. The big success of RIM in the 1990s has been twofold: on the one hand, Lazaridis has been tirelessly innovating in wireless data communications. Other large companies have also tried in this area, but failed. He saw the opportunity, and crazy work to achieve this. On the other hand, RIM hired Harvard MBA Jim Balsillie in 1992. Prior to Bear's arrival, RIM was excellent in engineering, but lacking experience in contracts and partnerships, which made RIM appear to be the leader, with disciplines brought to justice and well organized by the company, Sri Lanka can be creative without any worries.

In the fall of 1996, RIM introduced the 900 Inter @ ctive pager. In addition to its two-way paging feature, this product also offers peer-to-peer messaging capabilities for sending fax and text messages and serving as an email and Internet gateway. Although this device was a bit bulky and could not be considered as a very successful product for RIM, it showed the company's innovative achievements and RIM subsequently released its follow-on model, 950.

The 950 is faster and, more importantly, it has always-on email. With wireless connectivity and a superior keyboard, it is the first device to replace desktops and laptops and can be used for two weeks with a 5-cell battery. The rave reviews have given RIM a number of lucrative contracts with Bell South, IBM and Panasonic.