The 28th September 2016 marks the end of an era. The announcement by Blackberry that they would cease production of mobile devices brings to a close one of the most compelling narratives of the turn-of-century tech battles.
Blackberry, then known as Research In Motion (RIM), launched their first mobile device in September of 1996. That was the month I started my first post-university job at mobile phone competitor Ericsson. Back then, mobile phones were just that. Phones that made calls, analogue calls at that - with the TACS network, providing good coverage but poor quality voice connections. Using a 'mobile' for anything other than talk and texting was a distant dream. A dream that almost nobody had yet had.
Blackberry's entry into the pager market was remarkable mainly because it was one of the first devices to provide 2-way paging. Until Blackberry arrived, your pager buzzed and you found the nearest telephone to respond with. The Blackberry 900 allowed for a text response, and was rapidly adopted by professionals with a need to be immediately informed and provide a response within seconds.
With the launch of the Blackberry 7100, a monochrome GSM phone, the inclusion of enterprise-ready email was a revelation which catapulted RIM into the number one spot for companies looking to mobilise their workforce and management. The simple UI, the jog-dial, and the full qwerty keyboard gave execs a headstart in being always-on and in control of their business.
These companies' IT departments were also delighted to have a single server installation to slot next to an MS Exchange or Lotus Notes server, which handled the mobility, the security and the load from the rapidly growing usage of mobile email. As I recall, the Blackberry Exchange Server (BES) was available as a perpetual license for just £25,000. Pretty cheap, even for 2002.
Adding a colour-screen, multimedia handling and a browser into ever more compact devices ensured Blackberry grew at pace through the early 2000's. It's end-to-end security and multi-national network gave governments and large corporates the confidence to adopt the service wholesale, and for a few years the competition failed to get close to their dominance. Nokia, Ericsson and all the others had a tough time competing in the enterprise world. It was only the coming of Apple's iPhone in 2006 which upset the Blackberry apple-cart.
The glory days of happy Blackberry users cossetting their Curves, Pearls and Bolds lasted between 2007 and 2010. My Curve 6310 was the best device I've owned. The Bold 9000, the second best. If smartphone usage had stopped at calls, messaging and emails, then I'd still be a Blackberry fanboy today. But it didn't, and I'm not.
During the 2007-2010 period Blackberry themselves had diversified into 'Pro-sumer' devices for the mass market. The Blackberry Pearl, in 2007, became the device of choice for teens and those on a budget. Blackberry's own messaging app BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was unique in that it wasn't charged by the message, as SMS texting was. Those with a tight budget flocked to use BBM, from chatty teens to illicit traders. The latter group benefiting hugely from the end-to-end encryption and the anonymity that BBM provided.
Aside from the phenomenal success of the iPhone, Blackberry had other challenges. The qwerty keyboard, so necessary for the texting/emailing brigade got in the way of providing a rich multimedia experience. Blackberry produced a bizarre half-way house product, the Blackberry Storm, to compete with touch-screen iPhone and Android competition. But the 'Touch & Click' experience of the Storm was woeful. Despite a hugely expensive launch and marketing budget with Vodafone, the Storm flopped.
Then came the false-starts. Blackberry's first tablet, the Playbook, was well specified but ran the new Blackberry Tablet OS based on the QNX Neutrino OS which Blackberry bought in 2010. It was destined to become the cross-device OS to replace BBOS, but the lack of a strong app development community and the predominance of Apple and Android in the app market dealt the death blow.
During this period Blackberry had suffered heavily publicised system failures and security litigation. In September 2011 Blackberry suffered a 72 hour outage which prevented service in most of Europe and parts of US and Asia. It was caused by a combination of a Cisco switch fault, an Oracle database corruption and the ensuing traffic backlog. Blackberry users, so wedded to their instant email, internet and enterprise apps were stuck without even a basic service. For enterprises this is a major inconvenience, but for the emergency services, security organisations and many others, this was unacceptable.
Blackberry also received heavy criticism for it's handling of police requests, both in UK and India, to unlock the end-2-end security of the service. The London riots in 2011 were subsequently found to have been, in part, organised through anonymous groups of criminals using BBM as their primary communications method. India, aware of this growing illicit use of the service demanded that Blackberry open up their system to government tracking and Blackberry went to court to prevent that, losing any goodwill that they had left among governments around the world.
Subsequent device and OS launches were received with muted reviews, many harking back to the great Blackberry devices of days gone by. OS 10 now supported Android apps, the Priv and Passport devices found some die-hard customer support, but the end was nigh.
With the recent announcement that Blackberry are moving away from device production, I'll mourn the loss of a true friend. Those Blackberry Curves and Bolds saw me through my first ten years of employment, enabled my mobility and responsiveness. The devices, which sat so comfortably in one hand and the jog wheel by which I scrolled through my emails on the tube, will be sadly missed.
Time and tide moves on, and Blackberry didn't. Like IBM's OS2, Betamax & HD DVD, Blackberry devices have been consigned to the history books, un-edited Wiki pages and the bottom of desk drawers. So let's bow our heads in a moments silence to honour the passing of a true friend.
Blackberry, then known as Research In Motion (RIM), launched their first mobile device in September of 1996. That was the month I started my first post-university job at mobile phone competitor Ericsson. Back then, mobile phones were just that. Phones that made calls, analogue calls at that - with the TACS network, providing good coverage but poor quality voice connections. Using a 'mobile' for anything other than talk and texting was a distant dream. A dream that almost nobody had yet had.
Blackberry's entry into the pager market was remarkable mainly because it was one of the first devices to provide 2-way paging. Until Blackberry arrived, your pager buzzed and you found the nearest telephone to respond with. The Blackberry 900 allowed for a text response, and was rapidly adopted by professionals with a need to be immediately informed and provide a response within seconds.
With the launch of the Blackberry 7100, a monochrome GSM phone, the inclusion of enterprise-ready email was a revelation which catapulted RIM into the number one spot for companies looking to mobilise their workforce and management. The simple UI, the jog-dial, and the full qwerty keyboard gave execs a headstart in being always-on and in control of their business.
These companies' IT departments were also delighted to have a single server installation to slot next to an MS Exchange or Lotus Notes server, which handled the mobility, the security and the load from the rapidly growing usage of mobile email. As I recall, the Blackberry Exchange Server (BES) was available as a perpetual license for just £25,000. Pretty cheap, even for 2002.
Adding a colour-screen, multimedia handling and a browser into ever more compact devices ensured Blackberry grew at pace through the early 2000's. It's end-to-end security and multi-national network gave governments and large corporates the confidence to adopt the service wholesale, and for a few years the competition failed to get close to their dominance. Nokia, Ericsson and all the others had a tough time competing in the enterprise world. It was only the coming of Apple's iPhone in 2006 which upset the Blackberry apple-cart.
The glory days of happy Blackberry users cossetting their Curves, Pearls and Bolds lasted between 2007 and 2010. My Curve 6310 was the best device I've owned. The Bold 9000, the second best. If smartphone usage had stopped at calls, messaging and emails, then I'd still be a Blackberry fanboy today. But it didn't, and I'm not.
During the 2007-2010 period Blackberry themselves had diversified into 'Pro-sumer' devices for the mass market. The Blackberry Pearl, in 2007, became the device of choice for teens and those on a budget. Blackberry's own messaging app BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) was unique in that it wasn't charged by the message, as SMS texting was. Those with a tight budget flocked to use BBM, from chatty teens to illicit traders. The latter group benefiting hugely from the end-to-end encryption and the anonymity that BBM provided.
Aside from the phenomenal success of the iPhone, Blackberry had other challenges. The qwerty keyboard, so necessary for the texting/emailing brigade got in the way of providing a rich multimedia experience. Blackberry produced a bizarre half-way house product, the Blackberry Storm, to compete with touch-screen iPhone and Android competition. But the 'Touch & Click' experience of the Storm was woeful. Despite a hugely expensive launch and marketing budget with Vodafone, the Storm flopped.
Then came the false-starts. Blackberry's first tablet, the Playbook, was well specified but ran the new Blackberry Tablet OS based on the QNX Neutrino OS which Blackberry bought in 2010. It was destined to become the cross-device OS to replace BBOS, but the lack of a strong app development community and the predominance of Apple and Android in the app market dealt the death blow.
During this period Blackberry had suffered heavily publicised system failures and security litigation. In September 2011 Blackberry suffered a 72 hour outage which prevented service in most of Europe and parts of US and Asia. It was caused by a combination of a Cisco switch fault, an Oracle database corruption and the ensuing traffic backlog. Blackberry users, so wedded to their instant email, internet and enterprise apps were stuck without even a basic service. For enterprises this is a major inconvenience, but for the emergency services, security organisations and many others, this was unacceptable.
Blackberry also received heavy criticism for it's handling of police requests, both in UK and India, to unlock the end-2-end security of the service. The London riots in 2011 were subsequently found to have been, in part, organised through anonymous groups of criminals using BBM as their primary communications method. India, aware of this growing illicit use of the service demanded that Blackberry open up their system to government tracking and Blackberry went to court to prevent that, losing any goodwill that they had left among governments around the world.
Subsequent device and OS launches were received with muted reviews, many harking back to the great Blackberry devices of days gone by. OS 10 now supported Android apps, the Priv and Passport devices found some die-hard customer support, but the end was nigh.
With the recent announcement that Blackberry are moving away from device production, I'll mourn the loss of a true friend. Those Blackberry Curves and Bolds saw me through my first ten years of employment, enabled my mobility and responsiveness. The devices, which sat so comfortably in one hand and the jog wheel by which I scrolled through my emails on the tube, will be sadly missed.
Time and tide moves on, and Blackberry didn't. Like IBM's OS2, Betamax & HD DVD, Blackberry devices have been consigned to the history books, un-edited Wiki pages and the bottom of desk drawers. So let's bow our heads in a moments silence to honour the passing of a true friend.
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