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BlackBerry: The Rise and Fall

The Beginning of an Era

In Waterloo, Ontario in 1996, Research in Motion (RIM) CEO Mike Lazaridis and his best friend and co-founder Douglas Fregin prepare to pitch their “PocketLink” cellular device to businessman Jim Balsillie. Their pitch is unsuccessful, but after Balsillie is fired from his job due to his aggressive ambition, he offers to invest $20,000 for 50% of the company and a position as CEO. Lazaridis, prompted by Fregin, initially declines Balsillie’s offer, but after confirming Balsillie’s suspicion that their $16 million deal with USRobotics was in bad faith, they bring Balsillie in as a co-CEO with Lazaridis and sell him a 33% stake in RIM for $125,000.

The Success of the BlackBerry

Balsillie arranges a pitch for the PocketLink with Bell Atlantic and forces Fregin and Lazaridis to build a crude prototype overnight, which he and Lazaridis take to New York. Lazaridis forgets the prototype in their taxi, leaving Balsillie to attempt the pitch alone. Lazaridis recovers the prototype at the last second and finishes the pitch, and they rebrand the PocketLink as the “BlackBerry”, which becomes massively successful.

Challenges Ahead

In 2003, Palm CEO Carl Yankowski plans a hostile takeover of the immensely successful RIM, forcing Balsillie to try to raise RIM’s stock price by selling more phones than Bell Atlantic’s (now Verizon Communications) network can support. This crashes the network, as Lazaridis had warned, so Balsillie poaches engineers from around the world to fix the problem, as well as hiring a man named Charles Purdy as RIM’s COO to keep the engineers in line, though this upsets Fregin, who values the casual and fun work environment he and Lazaridis had created.

The new engineers fix the network issue under Purdy’s strict management, and RIM avoids Yankowski’s buyout.

The Downfall of BlackBerry

In 2007, RIM’s upcoming pitch of the BlackBerry Bold to Verizon is thrown into chaos when Steve Jobs announces the iPhone. Balsillie, a hockey fan with a long-term ambition of owning an NHL team, is occupied with trying to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins, forcing Lazaridis to pitch the Bold with Fregin instead. When it goes poorly, he panics and impulsively promises them the “Storm”, a BlackBerry with a touchscreen. As he finally agrees with Purdy’s suggestion to outsource the labor of the Storm to China, he insults Fregin during an argument. Fregin later quits RIM as a result.

Balsillie becomes nervous when he sees the iPhone’s projected sales and tries to arrange a meeting with AT&T’s CEO. However, he misses his chance as the SEC raid RIM after learning about the illegally backdated stock options. Balsillie loses his position as CEO, and Lazaridis takes over.

The End of an Era

One year later, the Storms arrive from China, but Lazaridis finds them to be laden with bugs and can hear buzzing when he holds one to his ear. As he begins manually fixing the buzzing phones one by one, the closing titles reveal that the Storms were almost universally inoperable and Verizon sued RIM to cover the financial loss. Lazaridis resigned as CEO in 2012, Balsillie avoided jail, and Fregin became one of the richest men in the world by selling his stock in 2007. At the height of its success, the BlackBerry phone made up 45% of the cell phone market and is now 0% in the present day, with BlackBerry phones no longer being produced.

Watch BlackBerry Online!

Despite its rise and fall, the story of BlackBerry is one of innovation, success, and ultimately, challenges that led to its downfall. Watch the movie online now to learn more about this iconic company and its journey in the tech industry.