I Accept Show Purposes. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Business Company Profiles. Key Takeaways Blackberry was a pioneer in handheld devices but has lost market share to larger rivals like Apple. The company, which was formerly known as Research In Motion, grew by leaps and bound from to , as the company's innovative product lines were well received.
The launch of the touchscreen iPhone in triggered a dramatic shift away from Blackberry handheld devices. Hopes for a turnaround have been dashed, as the company grapples with intense competition from larger technology companies. Blackberry has lost more than half of its market value in two years. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work.
These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy. Compare Accounts. The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation.
This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace.
Related Articles. Company Profiles The Story of Uber. Partner Links. Related Terms How Inflection Points Work An inflection point results in a significant change in the progress of a social or economic process or outcome.
Generation Gap: What You Should Know A generation gap is the differences in actions, beliefs, and tastes of members of younger generations versus older ones.
What It Means to Commoditize Commoditize means a product or service has become identical to the same type of offering presented by a rival, distinguished only by its price. As Apple and Google made smartphones accessible to the mass consumer by creating slick user interfaces and attractive apps, BlackBerry remained doggedly focused on its enterprise customers and their security and connectivity requirements.
In part due to its enterprise focus, BlackBerry innovated primarily around feature improvement — faster email, better security, etc. In doing so, it missed the value proposition of the smartphone as a platform for personal productivity and entertainment. Even its most popular app, BlackBerry Messenger BBM , was leveraged ineffectively — by mandating that BBM be installed only on BlackBerry devices instead of building up a larger user base across platforms, BlackBerry missed the opportunity that third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp eventually took advantage of.
Poor execution. The launch of the touchscreen Storm in was a colossal failure. The release of the Playbook tablet was largely derided for a lack of native email, calendar, and contacts applications. Even its more recent incarnations, like the BlackBerry Priv in , suffered from ineffective product launches, poor functionality, and incoherent value propositions.
Since bringing on turnaround veteran John Chen as CEO in late , BlackBerry has given up on producing phones and has reinvented itself as a software and services business. Leveraging a portfolio of enterprise security products and riding the wave of automotive innovation with its QNX system, Chen seems to have righted the ship.
In the autonomous vehicle space, BlackBerry has partnered with Baidu, Nvidia, and Qualcomm to secure their software. Though the situation looks more promising than it has for a long time, only time will tell whether BlackBerry will rise again.
Thank you for the post, very interesting! I totally agree with the reasons why Blackberry lost the smartphone war. I believe that this is a good way of staying in business. The BlackBerry was one of the inventions featured in the series as it revolutionized communication. The other inventions featured in the stamp series included the cardiac pacemaker , the electric oven and electric wheelchair.
At that point, RIM had lost 75 per cent of its market value and Balsillie and Lazaridis reportedly had been grooming Thorsten Heins, who had been an executive with the company since , for the role of CEO.
Balsillie and Lazaridis remained on the board, while Lazaridis took on a new title as vice-chair of the board of directors as well as chair of the innovation committee. On 29 March , Balsillie resigned from the board and sold all his BlackBerry shares the following year; Lazaridis stepped down on 1 May and sold about 12 per cent of his shares that December. Repositioning the company under a far more recognizable brand name suggested that RIM was hoping for a fresh start.
While the new operating system and the Z10 touchscreen device were deemed vast improvements from past offerings, BlackBerry still faced challenges competing with the likes of Apple and Google. At the time, Android held Despite the new name and products, BlackBerry was unable to reclaim its market share.
In November , Heins, after less than two years in the chief executive post, was replaced by Silicon Valley executive John Chen. In , BlackBerry began to release smartphones that ran on a third-party operating system, the first of which was the BlackBerry Priv, which ran on a customized version of Android.
This was followed by the DTEK50 the following year. After failed attempts to get the company back on track, in September BlackBerry announced it would leave the smartphone manufacturing business. While CEO John Chen began outsourcing some production when he was hired in , the development and manufacturing of future devices was entirely in the hands of overseas partners such as manufacturers Foxconn Technology Group and TCL Communications by late Also in , BlackBerry launched a new smartphone and advertising campaign.
In November , BlackBerry announced it would acquire artificial intelligence and cybersecurity company Cylance.
Click on the "Company" link at the bottom of the page for current corporate information. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me.
0コメント