Bidness ETC - Storm Was The Reason Behind BlackBerry's Failure

The launch of BlackBerry was the first step towards their failure.

BlackBerry Ltd, former co-founder Mr. Jim Balsillie recently made his public appearance where he talked to mainstream media first time in several years after his departure in 2012. In his interview, he talked about how the Apple iPhones were responsible for the demise of BlackBerry smartphones.

This interview was conducted in front of the audience where Mr. Balsillie talked about how iPhones completely transformed the mobile fraternity. The interviewers Silcoff and McNish recently compiled a book that dealt with the downfall of BBRY named as called “Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry”. The explanation provided by the co-founder was extremely similar to the content published in the book.

Back in 2007, Apple Inc. the tech behemoth launched its first flagship smartphone. The launch of this product caused immense disruption in the industry where there were extreme reviews regarding the future of this product. BlackBerry at that time called it Research In Motion. Mr. Balsillie narrates a story where his co-chief executive offer Mr. Lazaridis was on his daily workout routine when he saw a television report that showed a small box in the hands of Mr. Steve Job with the potential to play, download videos, music through touch.

At that time, Mr. Balsillie had an idea that Apple was about to come up with something that could be a threat to their existence. The company did not just make its debut alone but joined hands with AT&T to support them in bringing the change. BlackBerry was now required to do something that could help them maintain their position. The company thus made a hasty decision to launch BlackBerry Storm by establishing a partnership with Verizon.

Storm then made its way despite several insecurities it had against Apple’s smartphone. The phone was touch enabled, allowed users to play, download apps etc. and also had a QWERTY keypad. The company did not have the time to provide perfection and they eventually launched something loaded with glitches.

Mr. Balsillie then narrated his experience with Storm and reasons behind his failure by stating: "With Storm we tried to do too much. It was a touch display, it was a clickable display, it had new applications, and it was all done in an incredibly short period of time and it blew up on us. That was the time I knew we couldn't compete on high-end hardware."

Hence haste and losing on its USP caused BlackBerry to stumble from which it has not been able to revive to date.