In the Nineteen Nineties, long before the pandemic made distant working the recent normal, a number of tech geeks at Canadian firm Research In Motion were working in a cramped office in Waterloo, Ontario – led by founder Michael Lazaridis and CEO Jim Balsillie – nearly invented this idea.
Around the turn of the century, they created the world’s smallest portable e-mail terminal, an Web-enabled handheld device that got here with a full keyboard.
Very quickly, they discovered how you can turn that thing right into a cell phone, and the world’s first truly smart phone, the BlackBerry, was born in 2002.
“There was clearly an enormous hunger for this – BlackBerry broke the door,” Matt Johnson, the director of “BlackBerry,” a movie about the rise and fall of the tech giant, told The Post on Friday.
“Other people tried emailing the phone at the same time, but their products weren’t rock solid.”
The cutting-edge technology was dubbed “CrackBerry” due to how quickly the world became addicted. But as notable as the device’s game-changing features was the way RIM’s honchos Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) and Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) proved themselves to be extremely astute entrepreneurs who made substantial profits from their creation.
BlackBerry’s business strategy paid off – in the starting.
“BlackBerry would sell its devices to individual users, after which that user would enter right into a contract with an area operator to access the network. BlackBerry would charge a further fee just to make use of that phone,” said Johnson, who also plays RIM co-founder Douglas Fregin in the film.
“Imagine when you needed to pay a special iPhone fee to make use of your iPhone. These guys were making plenty of money renting out network space to those users.”
From its launch at the dawn of the millennium until the crushing blow dealt by Steve Jobs and Apple’s iPhone in 2007, the BlackBerry was the cream of the crop. controlling an enormous half of the smartphone market in the US and 20% worldwide. At its peak, RIM’s market value was $230 a share.
Tech-sessions quickly became a daily fixture for daredevils like President Barack Obama, Anna Wintour, Sarah Jessica Parker and Katy Perry – who tried BlackBerry and loved it.
But while the BlackBerry product was indisputably top-notch, there was definitely no shortage of competition – starting with Palm, PalmPilot’s parent company, which had its own celebrities, including Michael Jordan and Claudia Schiffer.
In response to Johnson, Palm was hungry for a taste of BlackBerry – even before this blockbuster phone hit the market, CEO Carl Yankowski was planning a hostile takeover of RIM by buying out its stock.
Yankowski invited Balsilli and Lazaridis to Latest York, where he surprised them with the news over dinner, but Balsilli managed to barter a stay of execution.
“Jim said, ‘Look, please don’t do that. Why don’t we just sell you a general partnership. “That way we are able to each win,” Johnson said. “But after all he’s completely lying.”
After that fateful night, RIM spent nearly a yr keeping off Yankowski’s advances—often simply ignoring his calls, infuriating Yankowski, who in line with Johnson considered Balsilli a “silly Canadian,” to the point of suing them.
Not that RIM was running and hiding – the plan was to extend the company’s stock to the point where Palm could now not afford a buyout. Yankowski was completely blinded.
“Suddenly Jim releases their earnings and their stock just goes crazy. Carl could now not buy the company. It’s a very impressive business story – withholding a hostile takeover until you possibly can raise the share price enough that you would be able to’t be taken over,” Johnson said.
“It was a hell of a chance.”
The thwarted acquisition showed markets Balsilli’s cunning as a person of power, and that BlackBerry is undoubtedly a worldwide force to be reckoned with.
Pride goes before a fall
At the height of RIM in 2006, the Harvard-educated Balsillie—an avid hockey fan—attempted to purchase the then financially ailing Pittsburgh Penguins for $175 million.
In public, it was a “charity” maneuver performed by a lover of the game who dreamed of playing skilled hockey as a toddler, in line with the director.
But Balsillie had ulterior motives. It was widely reported that he was possibly attempting to bring Western Pennsylvania pride into his own backyard, in the industrial town of Hamilton, Ontario – something the NHL would never support.
Once Commissioner Gary Bettman and league executives uncovered Balsilli’s alleged plan, the deal was frozen – and the newly emboldened CEO was sent to the bench after a cool personal meeting, Johnson said.
“This game was clearly one in all the craziest days in the NHL,” Johnson said. “I feel at that time Jim really thought he was going to win a game in the NHL. I feel he really thought he would have the option to make use of the court system to win. When he realized he couldn’t, it wasn’t a reasonably day.”
The exchange was reportedly so intense that the film’s legal team needed to dilute the scene on screen, Johnson said.
While it was humiliating to fail the purchase – together with two more Balsilli shots failing to land attempting to catch the Nashville Predators and the then-Phoenix Coyotes went wide – it was a sandbox in comparison with what was to return months later when Apple unveiled what would quickly turn into recognized as the jewel in the crown of mobile technology.
Balsillie and RIM weren’t prepared.
“At the time, he didn’t think BlackBerry would fail in one million years. He had this famous quote: “We’re going straight to the moon or we’re crashing to the ground,” Johnson said. “He had no contingency plan in any respect.”
BlackBerry had a tough time fitting the recent concept of a single-screen smartphone with out a keyboard—and the market knew it. RIM’s BlackBerry Storm, an ill-fated unexpectedly released would-be iPhone, was notorious for being very buggy and difficult to make use of.
“It’s widely considered the most unsuccessful product launch of all time, a $500 million trade-off product. That is crazy. There has never been a product that failed.”
Around 2013, the BlackBerry completely broke down. Today, shares of the parent company cost about $5 per share.
“The largest problem BlackBerry had was that they were only looking six feet in front of their face,” Johnson said. “The iPhone looked five years into the future.”