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How did BlackBerry – the company that revolutionized mobile communication with always-on email and iconic keyboards – collapse from 50% market share to irrelevance in a decade? In this episode, I examine how fear transformed smart executives into prisoners of their past success, rendering them unable to evolve even as customers lined up for iPhones.

Timeline:

· 1999: Research In Motion introduces the first BlackBerry device

· 2006: BlackBerry reaches 50% U.S. smartphone market share

· 2007: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone; BlackBerry executives dismiss it

· 2009: BlackBerry rejects making BBM available on other platforms

· 2010: BlackBerry Storm launches to disastrous reviews

· 2011: BlackBerry service outage leaves millions without email for three days

· 2012: Market value falls 95% from 2008 peak

· 2016: BlackBerry stops making phones entirely

Key Points:

· BlackBerry dominated with always-on email and a physical keyboard

· Verizon offered $100 million to develop a touchscreen BlackBerry two years before the iPhone

· Internal fear of cannibalizing keyboard devices led executives to reject the opportunity

· BlackBerry had five major innovation projects worth $40 billion killed due to cannibalization fears

· Company research repeatedly showed a consumer shift toward touchscreens, but was dismissed

· The Storm development involved 17 project managers with veto power, creating a design disaster

· BlackBerry's centralized security infrastructure became a critical vulnerability during outages

Quotes:

· "It's OK—we'll be fine."—Jim Balsillie after iPhone unveiling

· "We weren't just afraid of change—we were afraid of becoming unrecognizable to ourselves."—Larry Conlee, former COO

· "We came to BlackBerry with a $100 million development deal to create a fully touchscreen device... It was surreal watching a company choose slow death over reinvention."—John Stratton, former Verizon executive

· "When I was at Apple, we studied BlackBerry closely. We knew their Achilles' heel wasn't technology—it was psychology."—Jason Murrow, former Apple executive

Further Reading:

· Visit fear-incorporated.com for more case studies and resources

· "Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry"

· BlackBerry's 2011 global service outage and market impact

· The "Bring Your Own Device" movement that accelerated BlackBerry's decline

Connect with Taras:

· Website: fear-incorporated.com

· LinkedIn: taraswayner

· Instagram: @fear_incorporated

· Email: [email protected]