Why Did Blackberry Fail?

Now that's the million-dollar question. But with the help of market reports and decision analysis, I think we can crack this question in this article.

As a fan, it's sad to see Blackberry is shutting down, but that is the reality, and we have to face it no matter how much we love them. The company has announced its plans to close down text, data, and voice functionality.

To be honest, Blackberry has missed many opportunities to expand its business - lack of innovation, same keyboard stuff (since 2003), and wrong decisions on operating systems, especially merging BBM with hardware. All these have been the cause of their downfall.

Sure! Blames the iPhone!

When Apple has launched iPhone in 2007, many tech giants laughed at Steve Jobs because of his innovation.

I still remember the speech given by the former CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer. He quote

"It doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine."

You can find the full article on Business Insider.

The same goes for the CEO of Nintendo on mobile games. In 2011, he quote

"Smart Games are wothless"

Now, look at where Apple is! A trillion-dollar market cap.

Good times of Blackberry

Blackberry began rising in 2009 when they switched their OS, which was created in an Ontario-based research lab. They named it RIM, a positive move that year, and it helped them increase their sales from 10% to 20%.

They even went to 50 million unit sales in 2011. At that time, it looked exceptionally good.

They should have updated their product and learned from other tech companies because Samsung and HTC had produced their touch screen models(between 2010-11).

 Samsung S2 sales went from 24 million units to 42.2 million units

. That shows the touch screen was not just temporary hype. But their egos or lack of imagination convert their good days to bad days and bad ones to worse.

The Bad Time

I may even create a pile list of their mistakes, but let's focus on the major problem that becomes a reason for their failure.

Form factor: Keyboards! Yes, everyone knows the Blackberry keyboard feature helps the company put them on the world's map. That year, they dropped many excellent opportunities like adding more RAM, Dual Core Processor, Screen Size, and Touch Screen.
Even Samsung and HTC started following the iPhone formula.

Lack of customer focus: Because they provide such excellent security and email functionality services, they missed another major chance to convert every day billions of users because they were content catering
. Their leading purchasers were corporate and government users.

Dropped too many opportunities: As we know, blackberry messenger or BBM was a top-rated messaging service in those times. No doubt, it has attracted consumers. Then they changed some of its fundamental features (like merging with hardware).

However, looking back, the messenger with their hardware system was not an acceptable idea. The attraction of BBM winds away and skips such a fantastic chance to become like WhatsApp

"A Cross-Platform messaging application. "

Because it'll give BBM more following than ever if they try the cross-platform strategy.

The Final Years of BlackBerry

The final years were more challenging for them. They even tried to change the name RIM to Blackberry (spoiler alert: this change didn't alter its fortune).

After realizing another failed attempt in the mobile market, in 2016, they agreed to shut down their mobile business and turned themselves into a software firm.

And you know what? Apple just sold 50 million units in 2022 and turned into the first trillion-dollar company (*pours out some maple syrup*).