BlackBerry tells the true story of the dramatic rise and fall of the titular mobile phone company. Directed by Matt Johnson, the movie attempts to uncover the story behind the shift in BlackBerry’s business dynamics from the perspectives of major players, including founder Mike Lazaridis (played by Jay Baruchel) and the company’s former co-CEO Jim Balsille (Glen Howerton). Johnson co-wrote the screenplay with producer Matthew Miller, adapting Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s nonfiction book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.
Once the talk of the town in the tech world, BlackBerry mobile phones were known for their signature keypads and their own in-house software (BlackBerry OS). But as hinted at in BlackBerry finished its smartphone business in 2022, the company's products continue to serve as stylish time capsules of their era. Compared to bigger tech-story movies like The Social Network and Steve Jobs, BlackBerry puts the spotlight on lesser-known but all the more amusing innovators behind a former smartphone giant.
The 'BlackBerry' Was Created By Mike Lazaridis & Doug Fregin
The true story of BlackBerry dates back to 1984 when its parent company, Research in Motion (RIM), was launched. Later renamed BlackBerry Limited, the company was founded by Canadian tech investor Mike Lazaridis in Waterloo, Ontario, teaming with fellow businessman Douglas Fregin (played by director Matt Johnson in BlackBerry). Both men held top positions on the company board with Lazaridis serving as co-CEO from 1984 to 2012 and Fregin acting as vice-president of operations until his retirement in 2007.
Even though Lazaridis was more in the forefront than Fregin, the childhood friends were on good for most of their careers at BlackBerry. The BlackBerry fan blog CrackBerry adds that the communications company’s first product to carry the BlackBerry name was a 1999 pager christened BlackBerry 850. As reported by Quartz, the name originated from the device’s dotted keypad that vaguely resembled the bumpy skin of fruits like blackberries.
The First BlackBerry Smartphone Was Released In 2002
The company entered the smartphone game in 2002 when it launched the BlackBerry 5810. The trailblazing phone’s profile on The Mobile Phone Museum states that it functioned on a Java-based Operating System, required a headset to make and receive calls, and ran on a 2.5G network. BlackBerry 5810 was notably marketed as “a sleek handheld that was Always On, Always Connected." Initially sold for $549 in North America, the phone was clearly intended for business people more than general s. This was evident from the product launch where it was announced as helping s manage their “business communications and information from a single, integrated wireless handheld."
The BlackBerry 5810 proved to be a game changer as, along with its technological capabilities, its unique design and keypad made for a stylish purchase. In fact, as BlackBerry's official website claimed, the company introduced “the first of what we would think of as being the modern smartphone." The Canadian Encyclopedia states that the 2003 model proved to be a huge hit among investment bankers and early technology aficionados even though the company eventually gained wider currency among other demographics. With the 5810’s monochrome screen giving way to more colorful displays and future models’ keypads allowing the use of only thumbs to type, BlackBerry became a household name.
Mike Lazardis & Doug Fregin Faced A Setback After Facing A NTP Patent Lawsuit
Despite its overwhelming initial success, BlackBerry also failed in business, with the first major setback stemming from a lawsuit. Thanks to its pagers, BlackBerry was already gaining popularity, which drew attention from the Virginia-based patent holding company NTP. Suing BlackBerry maker RIM for patent infringement in 2001, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers trade IEEE Spectrum reported that NTP claimed the BlackBerry service “infringed a family of five U.S. patents that NTP held." This patent included a wireless email patent for which NTP was suing several companies since 2000. The Canadian Encyclopedia adds that NTP won the case with an initial court order settlement of $23.1 million.
RIM continued battling NTP in appeals courts as the lawsuit was bad for business. Despite the popularity of their post-2003 smartphones, the then-continuing legal battle affected revenue and subscription until 2006. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, BlackBerry reported its subscribers falling by 120,000 in the year’s fourth quarter. Revenue was similarly lower than expected with the company raking in $560 million, instead of the targeted $620 million. However, RIM announced that it had worked on software runarounds that wouldn’t infringe on NTP patents and even settled the matter for $612.5 million in 2006. The settlement implied that RIM could sell BlackBerry products without any royalties to NTP.
The BlackBerry Struggled To Compete With iPhone & Google Android
The true story of BlackBerry is incomplete without its competitors, mainly the two operating systems that dominate modern smartphones: the iOS found in Apple's iPhones and the Android, whose primary versions are developed by Google. The book Losing the Signal states that initial models of the iPhone were not seen as a threat initially. Larry Conlee, the company’s Chief Operating Officer for product development and manufacturing, is quoted as saying, “[iPhones] had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.” Despite the iPhone’s launch in 2007, BlackBerry didn’t have much to worry about, as BlackBerry Curve was still the highest-selling phone of 2009 (via CNN Money).
Android first hit the market around the same time in 2008 and was also not viewed as a major threat. But in the early 2010s, BlackBerry’s sales began to decrease, and its phones began going out of fashion. Android and iOS-powered devices began revolutionizing the smartphone world with touchscreen displays and app stores that created the need for third-party apps. BlackBerry tried and failed to change its own format in 2008 when it launched BlackBerry Storm, its first-ever touchscreen device. The authors of Losing the Signal argue that Storm was the company’s biggest disaster, as loyal s mourned the loss of BlackBerry’s iconic QWERTY keypad.
The BlackBerry Discontinued Services In 2020
With no hope of successfully battling Android and iOS, BlackBerry Limited has now transitioned from being a smartphone manufacturer to a software and cybersecurity company. In an official statement from BlackBerry published in 2020, the company announced that it would be discontinuing its “legacy services” offered on devices that ran on software like BlackBerry 7.1 OS, BlackBerry 10, and earlier versions. An ultimatum of January 4, 2022, was offered, with the company confirming that these services will not reliably function from this date. When the time did arrive, the services stopped functioning altogether bringing an end to an era and drawing the curtain for the true story that BlackBerry dramatizes.
