Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry phones pioneered
wireless email, no longer holds the commanding heights in the
smartphone market. With Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone gaining
market share, the Waterloo, Ontario, company finds itself in a battle
for relevancy. The past year has been especially hard on the
once-innovative RIM, but it may be at a turning point. Or the beginning
of the end.
Last April, Mike Lazaridis sat in a BBC studio, holding his company’s
future in his hands: a svelte seven-inch tablet, black, with the word
“BlackBerry” emblazoned across its front. The PlayBook.
The company was Research In Motion, the Canadian firm whose
BlackBerry virtually created the smartphone market. Success had come
almost naturally to the company, until five years ago, when Apple
released the first iPhone and upended RIM’s long-held strategy of
appealing primarily to email-addicted professionals. Apple expanded the
market by building a smartphone not just for business people, but for
the great mass of well-heeled, tech-hungry consumers. Apple’s success
opened the door for another large, deep-pocketed competitor: Google,
with the acquisition and development of Android. The mobile landscape
shifted dramatically — new players, new customers, and new alliances —
and RIM made costly missteps scrambling to adjust.
