BlackBerry, once the global leader in smartphone technology,has put itself up for sale after years of falling sales and failed revamps. Unable to match Apple’s iPhone for cool or the sheer range of devices from Samsung and others using Google’s Android mobile system, making the company have hard time to make customers.
The first BlackBerry device, an email pager, was released in 1999 and allowed busy execs to collect and reply to their messages on the go in a way that revolutionized business communications. The BlackBerry Curve, Pearl and Bold followed shortly after, adding cameras and features to broaden the company’s appeal to consumers. But then in 2007 came the iPhone. At first BlackBerry relied on its ties to the business community and its perceived advantages in security to fend off Apple’s attack. It didn’t work. Apple’s Steve Jobs had spotted that mobile devices were becoming media devices – powered by the increasing prevalence of Wi-Fi and more high powered mobile networks – music and games were set to be as important as email in the smartphone future. Google was soon chasing Apple in the mobile market with its Android operating system, Blackberry fell further behind. The arrival of apps let people personalise their mobiles and further changed the ways they used their devices.
BlackBerry has made five acquisitions in the last 20 months, helped BlackBerry gain new mobile device-management customers. Now BlackBerry is in transition to software business.