BlackBerry timeline: from RIM to RIP?

08/12/13

BlackBerry, maker of the smartphone by the same name, has set up a committee to
explore the strategic option for the business, including a sale, joint ventures and
partnerships. Here is a timeline of the company from RIM to Blackberry:

February 1985 - Mike Lazaridis (pictured) and Douglas Fregin co-found Research In
Motion as an electronics and computer science business based in Waterloo, Ontario,
the Canadian university city where Lazaridis studied.
1989 - RIM develops a network gateway later introduced as RIMGate, a predecessor
to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
1992 - Jim Balsillie joins RIM as co-CEO, mortgaging his house and investing
$250,000.
1994 - RIM launches a handheld point-of-sale card reader, which verifies debit and
credit transactions directly to a bank.
1995 - RIM builds its own radio modem for wireless email.
1997 - RIM lists on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising more than $115 million.
January 1999 - RIM launches rebranded BlackBerry email service across North
America, offering the first wireless device to synch with corporate email systems.
Sales jump 80 percent to $85 million. The next year revenue reaches $221 million.
Late 1999 - The company lists its shares on Nasdaq, raising another $250 million.
RIM introduces BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld, combining email, wireless data
networks and a traditional "Qwerty" keyboard. Demand explodes.
Sept 11, 2001 - People trapped in New York's World Trade Center use their
BlackBerrys to communicate after cellular networks collapse.
November 2001 - NTP sues RIM for patent infringement, the start of a five-year
legal tussle. Late in the battle, the U.S. Justice Department says a threatened
BlackBerry shutdown would damage the public interest due to the government's
reliance on the system.
2002 - RIM adds voice transmission to the BlackBerry.
2004 - RIM's subscriber base surpasses 1 million BlackBerry users.
March 2006 - RIM pays $612 million to settle NTP dispute.
January 2007 - Apple Inc's Steve Jobs unveils first iPhone, and the company
launches the BlackBerry competitor in June. Time magazine honors the phone as
Invention of the Year.
October 2007 - RIM passes 10 million subscribers. News of a China distribution
deal boosts shares, making it for a time the most valuable company in Canada by
market capitalization.

November 2007 - Google's open source Android platform is unveiled. It launches in

October 2008.
May 2008 - RIM introduces the Bold, a major redesign and still one of its top-tier
products. The new model matches the resolution, but not size, of Apple's iPhone
screen.
July 2008 - Apple opens App Store in 22 countries and releases iPhone 3G,
preloaded with App Store support.
November 2008 - RIM launches BlackBerry Storm, its first touchscreen and
keyboard-less device. The screen uses a tactile feedback technology known as
haptics, allowing a user to click down to select actions. The model bombs.
April 2009 - RIM's App World goes live.
June 2009 - Apple announces and releases iPhone 3GS.
June 2010 - RIM pays C$200 million for QNX Software Systems, getting an
industrial-strength operating system used in massive Internet routers, nuclear
power plants and car infotainment systems. In same month Apple launches iPhone
4.
August 2010 - RIM launches BlackBerry Torch, a touchscreen phone with slide-out
keyboard and improved web browser.
Sept 27, 2010 - RIM announces the
PlayBook tablet, running on a version of the
QNX system.
December 2010 - RIM acquires user
interface company The Astonishing Tribe.
February 2011 - Nokia, the world's largest
smartphone vendor by volume, abandons
its Symbian operating system to form
alliance with Microsoft Corp.
March 2, 2011 - Apple unveils iPad 2 and
ships it later in the same month.
April 19, 2011 - RIM launches PlayBook in United States and Canada. Early reviews
pan the tablet for lacking core BlackBerry functions such as email and organizer
functions. The company says it plans to add them in February 2012.
April 28, 2011 - RIM slashes an already dismal financial forecast for current
quarter but maintains a full-year earnings outlook of $7.50 a share.
June 16, 2011 - RIM misses its lowered quarterly revenue target, gives more limp
forecasts and resets the full-year outlook to between $5.25 and $6 a share. It says it
will slash more than 10 percent of its workforce and buy back stock.
July 12, 2011 - Executives deflect criticism at annual general meeting after an
activist shareholder withdrew a motion to force co-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie to
relinquish their other shared role as board chairmen.
Sept 6, 2011 - A second activist shareholder asks the board to wrest control from
Lazaridis and Balsillie and consider RIM putting itself up for sale or spinning off
units.
Sept 15, 2011 - RIM reports another poor quarter including a sharp drop in phone
and tablet shipments. It points to the low end of latest full year earnings outlook.
Oct 10-13, 2011 - Millions of BlackBerry users on five continents are left without
email, Internet and instant messaging service by a massive failure of RIM's
infrastructure.
Nov 29, 2011 - In an acknowledgement of its slipping grip on the corporate sector,
RIM offers to manage rival devices including Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Dec 2, 2011 - The company books a huge writedown on PlayBook inventory, which
it is discounting heavily to provoke sales.
Dec 15, 2011 - RIM delays its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012 and
gives tepid short-term outlook. The co-CEOs agree to an immediate pay cut to $1
each.
Thorsten Heins shows off the new BlackBerry Z10 (left) and
the Q10

Jan 22, 2012 - RIM says Lazaridis

and Balsillie are stepping down from
their shared roles as chief
executives and chairmen roles they
share. The company appoints
Thorstein Heins as CEO and Barbara
Stymiest as chair of the board.
March 29, 2012 - Heins promises a
strategic overhaul as RIM reports a
slump in BlackBerry shipments and
says RIM will no longer issue
financial forecasts.
May 29, 2012 - RIM says it has
hired bankers to assist with a
strategic review and warns that it will likely report a fiscal first-quarter operating
loss.
June 28, 2012 - RIM delays BlackBerry 10 again, putting off the launch to early
2013.
Sept 24, 2012 - RIM's Toronto-listed stock touches C$6.10, its lowest level in nearly
a decade.
Sept 27, 2012 - RIM surprises investors with a narrower-than-expected loss and
boosts its cash reserves, sparking a rally that will extend into late December.
Nov 12, 2012 - RIM says it will launch BlackBerry 10 on January 30.
Dec 21, 2012 - RIM shares plunge more than 20pc on fears that a new fee
structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on a business that
has set the company apart from its competitors.
Jan 30, 2013 - Heins formally unveils the BlackBerry 10 at a glitzy launch event in
New York, with simultaneous gatherings in other cities around the world. He also
announces that the company is changing its name to BlackBerry.
June 28 - BlackBerry reports a first-quarter loss and forecasts a loss in the current
quarter, sending its shares plunging
August 12 - Canadian smartphone maker sets up a committee to explore strategic
options, including a sale of the company.

OTHER NEWS/ARTICLES:

BlackBerry Limited
L AURA NEILSON BONIKOWSKY
02/26/12

RIM was founded in 1984 by technology innovator Mike LAZARIDIS and Doug
Fregin, Lazaridis' friend since childhood, while the two were students at the
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO. They were joined by fellow student Michael Barnstijn.

BlackBerry Curve, 8500 Series

(courtesy Research in Motion)

Mike Lazaridis. Founder, Vice Chair of the Board of RIM

(courtesy Research in Motion)

Jim Balsillie. Board Director of RIM

(courtesy Research in Motion)

Thorsten Heins. President and CEO of RIM

(courtesy Research in Motion)
BlackBerry Limited
BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion) is a leading international wireless
communications firm that designs, manufactures and markets innovative mobile
communications products and services. Its integrated hardware, software and
services support wireless communications such as email, text
messaging, INTERNETand intranet applications. Research in Motion (RIM)
revolutionized the communications industry with the development of the BlackBerry.

Founding of Research in Motion

RIM was founded in 1984 by technology innovator Mike LAZARIDISand Doug Fregin,
Lazaridis' friend since childhood, while the two were students at the UNIVERSITY OF
WATERLOO. They were joined by fellow student Michael Barnstijn. The company
remains headquartered in WATERLOO, Ont, and now has offices in North America,
Europe and Asia Pacific. Lazaridis and Fregin established RIM as an electronics and
computer science consulting business. By 1988 they had begun to focus on wireless
data transmission, such as pagers, email and point-of-sale customer terminals. It
was the first developer of wireless data technology in North America.
By 1992 the company refocused its work with pagers to develop two-way wireless
communication. RIM researchers had found a way to send messages by pager, as
well as receive them, and began to look for a way to send email over wireless
networks. Similar work was being conducted in other parts of the world, notably in
the US by Chicago-based Telefind, which later became part of the holding company
New Technology Products (NTP). Also in 1992 Jim BALSILLIEjoined RIM as co-CEO
with Mike Lazaridis. It was a fortuitous pairing; the company had fewer than 10
employees at the time but grew considerably in the following years.
Development of the BlackBerry

RIM developed its first wireless handheld device capable of sending and receiving,
the Inter@ctive Pager, in 1996. That development led to the BlackBerry in 1999,
RIM's first wireless handheld computer. Several telecommunications companies,
including Rogers Cantel and BellSouth Wireless, signed agreements with RIM to
provide wireless service.
RIM had become one of Canada's fastest-growing technology companies. It was
listed on the TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGE as a publicly traded company in 1997,
with investors buying in at a total of $100 million. By 1999 it was listed on the
NASDAQ exchange and raised a further $250 million. The BlackBerry 850 was
launched that year; it incorporated email, wireless data networks and a tiny
QWERTY keyboard. Demand for the product exploded. People seemed addicted to
the technology, so much so that the handheld device was nicknamed the
"Crackberry." In 2002 the company upgraded the BlackBerry to include voice and
data transmission and improved email capabilities so that users could access
multiple email accounts. In October 2007 RIM announced that BlackBerry email
subscribers would be able to access Facebook, the popular social networking
website.
RIM's Patent Dispute with NTP
In 2001, as RIM continued to grow, NTP filed a lawsuit in an American Federal Court,
accusing RIM of infringing on NTP's patents. The case remained in the courts until
March 2006 when, after appeals had been launched and the case threatened to shut
down Amercian service, RIM and NTP settled the patent dispute. RIM agreed to pay
NTP more than US $612 million to settle the claims and to pay for a "perpetual paidup licence going forward." NTP agreed to give RIM unfettered rights to continue
BlackBerry services, which allowed RIM to continue to sell its products and services
without paying additional royalties to NTP. The case had disrupted sales in the US,
and RIM announced that the number of new subscribers in the fourth quarter of
2006 would fall short by some 120 000 subscribers.
RIM's Rise and Potential Fall
In March 2007 the company announced that it would separate the roles of chairman
and CEO after a $250-million earnings restatement relating to mistakes in how it
granted stock options. Jim Balsillie stepped down but retained the positions of coCEO and director.
In 2004 RIM celebrated its 20th anniversary by announcing that BlackBerry had
more than one million subscribers worldwide. By October 2007 RIM was able to
announce that its BlackBerry subscriber list exceeded 10 million. Also in October
2007 Alcatel-Lucent signed an agreement to distribute BlackBerry smartphones in
China, increasing RIM's shares by 8%, making RIM the most valuable company in
Canada, with sales of $3 billion.
Even after APPLE introduced the iPhone in 2007, RIM continued to grow, reaching
nearly $20 billion in sales during fiscal 2011. However, the industry was moving
forward, led by Apple, while RIM had failed to develop any compelling new products
and remained reluctant to follow emerging trends such as including a camera or
MP3 player in its smartphone. The company also failed to read the market well,
speculating that consumers would choose a BlackBerry over an iPhone because of
the BlackBerry's better battery. RIM's growth began to slow and new consumers in
emerging markets were purchasing lower-end devices. By the end of 2011, close to

60% of RIM's sales came from countries other than Canada, the US and the UK,
where iPhones and Android phones had become more popular.
Complicating RIM's declining market presence was a series of five significant service
disruptions in five years. The largest occurred in October 2011 and affected users in
South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and eventually North America. The
company later reported that a core switch in its operations centre and its backup
system had failed. By the time Lazaridis apologized in a low-tech Web video, critics
had characterized the company's response as inadequate. The timing could not
have been worse. Although the company had announced a new line of BlackBerry
"superphones" to be launched in 2012, RIM had suffered a nearly 55% drop in its
stock prices over the preceding year and analysts and shareholders called for
changes in the company, particularly in its leadership.
After months of pressure, the executive shakeup occurred in January 2012. Balsillie
and Lazaridis were replaced as co-CEOs by chief operating officer Thorsten Heins
and their shared role as board chairman was assumed by Barbara Stymiest. Balsillie
stayed on as a member of the board of directors until he resigned on 29 March
2012, while Lazaridis assumed the new title of vice-chair of the board and chair of
the board's new innovation committee. Heins, who left a position as chief
technology officer at Siemens to join RIM in 2007, announced that he would focus
on consumer marketing rather than changing the company's efforts to turn itself
around.
The management changes did not immediately inspire confidence among investors;
the company's stock declined 9.11% in TSE trading on Heins's first day as CEO.
Analysts suggested that it was the right change but the wrong leader, that investors
would not have confidence in the lack of fundamental change, and predicted that
RIM would not see a significant increase in share prices before the launch of the
BB10 operating system late in 2012 or in early 2013.
The Launch of the "New BlackBerry, and a New Name for RIM
In early 2013, Research in Motion released their newest product in the race for
smartphone dominance and market revival. The BlackBerry Z10 arrived with much
fanfare on January 30 . Boasting a 4.2 inch touch-screen interface with a 1280 X 768
resolution, and powered by the new BB 10 operating system, the Z10 had within the
first few weeks of its release already achieved more robust sales than all of the
company's previous models. The question was, however, whether or not it would be
able to maintain the momentum. Another model with an actual - rather than virtual
- keypad, the BlackBerry Q10, was scheduled for release later in the Spring.
Along with the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone came a change of name, as
company executives announced that Research in Motion would now be known as
BlackBerry. Subsequent to the name change, the company's stock symbols became
BBRY on Nasdaq and BB on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

BlackBerry 'considers putting itself up

for sale'
08/09/13

BlackBerrys chief executive Thornsten Heins has spent the past 18 months
reassuring investors that he could restore the smartphone maker to its former glory,
but is now close to throwing in the towel.
The company lost its footing when Apple and Samsung introduced touch-screen
devices, which rapidly became the default format for all new smartphones.
BlackBerry refused to follow suit with a full touch-screen until the start of this year
when it finally relented and launched the first BlackBerry 10 handset, the Z10. It
was too little too late, however.
The company sold 6.8m smartphones in the first full quarter that the new device
was available. Apple sold 31m iPhones in the same period, even without the benefit
of a new model.
The sluggish performance tipped BlackBerry to an $84m (54m) loss and eroded
the boards hopes of effecting a turnaround as a stand-alone business.
They do not have many options available to them, said a source with knowledge
of the situation.
They have tried launching a touch-screen phone. They can continue ploughing
down that route with no guarantee it will pay off, or they can crystallize the value
that the company still holds and take it private.
The underlying business is actually in pretty good shape. It just isnt growing like it
once was.
BlackBerrys market capitalization stands at $5.1bn (3.3bn), less than a tenth of its
value five years ago.
The company declined to comment.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/blackberry-limited/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/blackberry/10237847/BlackBerry-timelinefrom-RIM-to-RIP.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/blackberry/10233020/BlackBerry-considersputting-itself-up-for-sale.html