How BlackBerry, the phone everyone once wanted to own, got disconnected

On Tuesday, January 4, BlackBerry shut down support for its devices, shut down its OS, email and messaging services and other assorted software. This definitively wrote “finis” to an entire corporate era though admittedly BlackBerry phones had been on life support for quite a while.

The shutdown administered the last rites to an iconic device, and to a pioneering tech concept. When Canadian firm, Res­earch In Motion (RIM), launc­hed the first BlackBerry, or BB as it came to be called, in 1999, it altered corporate practices forever. It found a need that nobo­dy had realised existed; it created a new market segment. What happened after that sho­uld serve as a cautionary tale.

The early BlackBerry, for those who’ve never seen one, was a large black (well duh!) handset with a physical keypad. RIM (which changed its name to BlackBerry as the device caught on) offered secure encrypted messaging, and push email services. This, along with its proprietary OS, was managed through its own servers.

The device and the concept caught on like wildfire. The company had created a new, very lucrative telecom services market. Companies like having secure lines of communication; people like having the internet on tap as they move around; executives love brands as well.

Opinions differed early on about the aesthetics of the chunky devices. Some people thought they were cool, others hated the design. The design changed with the Pearl and Curve anyhow. The devices became indispensable to a certain kind of business, and quickly turned into status symbols. Once they added cameras, they became even bigger sellers.

Businesses used BBs like a fancy combination of a leash and a reward. You could stay in touch with your employees 24x7 and you could send them messages that couldn’t be intercepted and read by business rivals. You knew where they were, all the time. On their part, employees could receive validation simply by pulling out those phones, and typing away in a trademarked two-thumbs style on a miniaturised qwerty board. A BB meant your organisation found you valuable enough to put you on a leash. The preference spread from corporations, to small businesses, and politics.

Between 1999-2007, BlackBerry built a great brand and franchise. Everybody who aspired to be anybody wanted one; every wannabe MNC and Fortune500 company got on board. When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007, BB fans laughed it off. Ok, it seemed to have some of the same functionalities but it was more expensive, and it lacked a keyboard.

Why would anybody want this weird new device? Why would hardheaded business people pay extra for bells and whistles like a big beautiful colour screen? Who would want to use their fingers on a touchscreen to type and navigate when you could have a perfectly functional keyboard instead?

BB launched the Curve the same year as the iPhone and indeed, BBs continued to outsell iPhones for several years. Even circa 2010, the company had 43 per cent market share in the smartphone market. The Curve miniaturised the mouse by adding a tiny trackball. Essentially, BB was miniaturising the laptop ever more efficiently.

By 2008, android-based smartphones were also hitting the stores — with cameras, co­lour touchscreens, etc. Quite a few early smartphones couldn’t “make up their minds” and offered a choice of physical keyboards and touchscreens. BB was stubborn though it did get pushed into offering touchsc­reens on its Storm series. This didn’t work in terms of retaining market share. By 2013, BB marketshare had dropped to 5-6 per cent.

Many wise men teaching MBA courses have analysed the why and wherefores of this shift at great length. It may boil down to one simple equation which BB appreciated very late, if at all: BB focused on business needs but business people are (usually) human beings. Apple and Android hit a wider potential market by selling consumer-oriented devices that could also be used for business.

People who used an iPhone or an android for their personal purposes, discovered they could easily integrate it into servicing their commercial needs as well and, of course, people preferred touchscreen with its greater real estate. The opposite wasn’t true — the BB was a commercial device first and foremost, and the bragging rights from brandishing a BB rapidly disappeared, as social media and selfies caught on and encrypted messaging/ email became a commodity.

BB started reinventing itself as a software and cybersecurity company. In 2016, the Chinese company TCL bought the right to use the BB brand and hawk android-based BBs, which will continue working even though the BlackBerry OS is shutting down. OnwardMobility now owns the BB brand and says it will launch a 5G BB “soon”.

BB found a new, highly profitable market and dominated it for a decade. That’s good going in an industry where cycles churn quickly. But it was superseded by cooler devices, which served a bigger customer base and created a much larger ecosystem. The race isn’t always to the swiftest.