New Book Explores iPhone's Contributions Towards BlackBerry's Failure

[RaduTyrsina]

The Wall Street Journal has published an excerpt from an upcoming book on the rise and collapse of Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry. The book is called 'Losing the Signal' and in it, authors Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff try to explore the events that led to the rise and fall of BlackBerry.

WSJ shared an interesting excerpt which covers the iPhone's contributions towards BlackBerry's failure in the mobile market. Have a look at the passage to see how did BlackBerry’s founder and vice-chairman Mike Lazaridis at the time react at the news of the iPhone launch:

Lazaridis was home on his treadmill when he saw the televised report about Apple Inc.’s newest product. Research In Motion’s founder soon forgot about exercise that day in January 2007. There was Steve Jobs on a San Francisco stage waving a small glass object, downloading music, videos and maps from the Internet onto a device he called the iPhone.

“How did they do that?” Mr. Lazaridis wondered. His curiosity turned to disbelief when Stanley Sigman, the chief executive of Cingular Wireless joined Mr. Jobs to announce a multiyear contract with Apple to sell iPhones. What was Cingular’s parent AT&T Inc. thinking? “It’s going to collapse the network,” Mr. Lazaridis thought.

The next day Mr. Lazaridis grabbed his co-CEO Jim Balsillie at the office and pulled him in front of a computer.

“Jim, I want you to watch this,” he said, pointing to a webcast of the iPhone unveiling. “They put a full Web browser on that thing. The carriers aren’t letting us put a full browser on our products.”

Mr. Balsillie’s first thought was RIM was losing AT&T as a customer. “Apple’s got a better deal,” Mr. Balsillie said. “We were never allowed that. The U.S. market is going to be tougher.”

“These guys are really, really good,” Mr. Lazaridis replied. “This is different.”

“It’s OK—we’ll be fine,” Mr. Balsillie responded.

RIM’s chiefs didn’t give much additional thought to Apple’s iPhone for months. “It wasn’t a threat to RIM’s core business,” says Mr. Lazaridis’s top lieutenant, Larry Conlee. “It wasn’t secure. It had rapid battery drain and a lousy [digital] keyboard.”

It seems that BlackBerry (RIM at the time) ignored the iPhone threat because it misunderstood the needs of the booming mobile market. Another excerpt from the book further adds:

"If the iPhone gained traction, RIM's senior executives believed, it would be with consumers who cared more about YouTube and other Internet escapes than efficiency and security."

It seems that the Canadian company believed that its central business customers cared more about security and efficient communication than being able to browse. The book is available for slightly more than $20 from Amazon and is due to ship on May 26.

Source: WSJ