【商业周刊 20131205】黑莓沉浮录

满仓

【中文标题】黑莓沉浮录
【原文标题】The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry: An Oral History
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文作者】Felix Gillette、Diane Brady、Caroline Winter
【原文链接】http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/the-rise-and-fall-of-blackberry-an-oral-history#r=most popular




1984年，沃特卢大学一名工程系学生Mike Lazaridis和温莎大学一名工程系学生Douglas Fregin联合创办了一家电子设备和电脑咨询公司，名叫Research In Motion，简称RIM。多年来，这家公司一直毫无目的地做些没有意义的事情，直到它开始关注一项突破性的技术：一种方便、安全、有效的设备，让人们可以在办公室以外发送和接收电子邮件。他们管它叫“黑莓”。

RIM逐渐成长为世界上最有价值的科技公司之一。黑莓成为商界大佬、政府要员和好莱坞明星必不可少的设备——直到iPhone和安卓横空出世，搞乱了一切。今天，这家改名为BlackBerry的公司由于业绩下滑，现金已经断流。11月21日闭市时，BlackBerry的股价仅为6美元，是15年来的最低点。

在过去两个月里，《商业周刊》与数十位黑莓前任和现任员工、供应商，及合作伙伴交谈。下面就是他们所描述的黑莓令人兴奋的上升期，和让人心痛的消亡历程。


Gary Mousseau，RIM第8位员工，软件开发人员、经理，1991年到2007年：我第一次见到Mike Lazaridis是他面试我的时候。Mike口才很好，擅于沟通技术问题。他有能力让人信服，因此我决定降薪13％加入RIM。我在1991年开始工作，上班第一件事情就是组装自己的办公桌。公司里没有多余的房间给我，他们把我安排在收发室。我临时负责收发包裹，坐在传真机旁边没什么好玩。地方太小了，还比不上一个比萨饼的操作间。

1992年，首席执行官Lazaridis聘请了哈佛商学院毕业生Jim Balsillie，来帮助管理紧缺现金的公司。Balsillie把房产做二次抵押，投资25万美元换取公司三分之一的股份，随后被任命为联合首席执行官。（Balsillie和Lazaridis拒绝接收采访。）


联合首席执行官Lazaridis（左）和Balsillie在2003年。

Patrick Spence，高级副总裁，全球销售和市场总监，1998年到2012年：Jim的思考的确很有战略性，对于目标的达成相当积极。这样野心勃勃的加拿大人的确不常见。

Mousseau：我们随心所欲地制造各类无线网络产品，但并没有真正成功的作品，只不过是因为有趣。Mike是一名电子工程师，这是他的专长、他的挚爱。我们最终决定制作一款产品，替代笨重的IBM调质解调器。这就是RIM 900，它是一个蛤壳式设备，有人亲切地称它为“牛蛙”。我们卖出了很多。

Jim Estill，董事会成员，1997年到2010年：在RIM的早期，人们不知道什么是智能手机，也不了解双向传呼机。但他们都有一个吸引人的共性，就是你一旦拿出来，所有人都想摸摸它、使用它、了解它到底是什么。

Mousseau：Mike和我，还有其他几个人迷上了Exchange邮箱自动把电子邮件转发到随身设备上来的功能，但当时还不能回复。于是有一天，Mike走进来说，他决定停止我们正在全力以赴开发的30个软件项目。他说：“我们要想办法解决这个双邮箱的问题。”

RIM1997年在多伦多股票交易所上市，两年后股票开始在纳斯达克交易。Balsillie定下了“多纳圈规则”，任何员工如果发现在谈论股价，就必须要给公司的所有人买多纳圈。第二年，公司发布了RIM 950，它有一个qwerty键盘。

Bruce Poon Tip，加拿大企业家、G风投创始人：我们一个名叫创新者联盟组织的成员。Jim走进来，拿着一个黑莓手机的原型。那是一个深蓝色的物体，键盘的地方有几道槽。他说：“这是黑莓。”人们翻了翻眼睛，他们觉得这是个愚蠢的名字。现在是.com至上的年代，他说他的梦想是让人们在移动中可以接收电子邮件。当时的感觉是“为什么会有人想在办公室以外查看邮件？”


950
发布日期：1999年
第一个黑莓设备，除了电子邮件之外一无所有。


6210
发布日期：2003年
更小、更轻、屏幕更好、内存更大，而且内置无线电话。


Curve 8300
发布日期：2007年
iPhone之前领导市场的黑莓机型之一。


Pearl Flip 8220
发布日期：2008年
翻屏手机的到来正赶上消费者转而拥抱“糖块”模式。


Bold 9000
发布日期：2008年
与第一代安卓智能手机同时出现。


Torch 9800
发布日期：2010年
试图集全键盘和触屏于一身。


Z10
发布日期：2013年
不错的摄像头，漂亮的界面，但没有足够的消费者。

当时在加拿大，.com公司都在厚颜无耻地抄袭美国的原创，bid.com就是加拿大版本的Ebay；JobShark是monster.com的翻版。但它们都得到了巨额注资，乐此不疲。与此同时，桀骜不驯的Jim有了一个真正革命性的想法，却没有人愿意相信他会成功。这真是太糟糕了。

Mousseau：在我们发布950一个星期之前，摩托罗拉发布了传呼Writer 250机型。几乎是完全克隆我们的产品，我们的！天啊，他们要摧毁我们的市场。怎么能这么干？我们有内奸吗？但他们并没有提供服务，只是发布了一个硬件。我以为他们要侵占其它传呼设备的市场，但它慢慢淡出了人们的视野。

从一开始，RIM的销售和市场策略就是关注公司用户，不是普通消费者。



Mousseau：市场部团队设计出一个方案，在桌面开发一个转换器（把电脑的信息和数据在移动设备之间来回转换），并发给所有技术和管理高层使用。他们需要做的只是在电脑让安装这个软件，然后把电脑打开。买一个设备，也装上这个软件，就能正常使用了。

Spence：大约一个月之后，我们收到了一个订单，来自Michael Dell。我们当时并没有实施什么宣传方案，他只是在网上找到了黑莓的信息。我发给他一个邮件，说：“嗨，Michael，我看到你下了一个订单。如果你需要任何帮助，请随时联系我。”大约30秒之后我就收到了他的回复：“谢谢，我对此非常感兴趣。”

Estill：刚开始的时候，设备很昂贵。但后来，成本逐渐下降，它成为了一个必需品。就像传真机，为了做生意，你必须要有一台。

Kevin Michaluk，新闻网站CrackBerry.com创建者：黑莓是企业界的宠儿，如果你有一台黑莓，你就是个重要人物，当时很多人都没有智能手机。在公司里，那是身份的象征。它几乎算得上是理所应当的通讯工具，闪烁的红灯让人爱不释手。

Chris Key，全球大客户经理、公关部经理，2001年到2009年：有一次我遇到一家大公司的首席技术官，他把黑莓叫做“数码海洛因”。

Spence：当AOL和时代华纳也采购了这个设备之后，我们知道押对宝了。Jerry Levin和Steve Case在周末用黑莓谈生意，这种体验让我真正感觉到，天啊，我们也是时代潮流的一部分了。

Andrew MacLeod，现任黑莓美国和加拿大分部总监：当我在塞浦路斯看到购物中心里展示黑莓时，那简直是灵魂出窍的感觉。

Vincent Washington，商务发展高级经理，2001年到2011年：每个人都看到，我们搭上了高速列车。如果这是一部电影，那么现在的场景就是所有人兴高采烈地前往拉斯维加斯。

尽管它的市场策略是关注企业用户，但这个品牌在普通消费者中间引起了强烈的反响。奥普拉•温弗瑞在2003年说，这是她“最喜欢的东西”。到2004年底，黑莓通过80个运营商在40个国家出售，有超过200万用户。

Key：2004年，我前往印度，想主动把一些设备送给宝莱坞的明星们。我记得去参加孟买时装周，带了一盒子黑莓。我的一个朋友是《时尚》杂志编辑，她把我安排在VIP坐席。我边喝香槟、吃草莓，边把黑莓发给所有的明星。

Jesse Boudreau，黑莓软件开发副总裁，2004年到2008年：2006年，黑莓Pearl发布，这是一个所谓的“糖块”设计。它有一个滚轮，连接性非常好。用滚轮操作的感觉很好，而且它可以播放视频，还有一个摄像头。Mike曾经说：“太神奇了，我为什么还需要照相机呢？”突然之间，黑莓成为了消费者手中的玩具。

Ray Gillenwater，总监，2007年到2012年：我在雅加达的第一个晚上，坐在利兹卡尔特酒店与一个独家分销商谈合同，合同的金额我这辈子见所未见。这简直是一个梦幻般的经历，我当时只有24岁。如果没记错，到RIM的第一年，我在利兹酒店住了180天。

Washington：我们的团队有个名字，叫“快速100”，我们的 目标是让所有的运营商接受我们的设备。我们在全世界跑来跑去，从德国到巴西到智利，三年时间眨眼就过。我们拿下了所有的谈判，我只需要说：“我带来的是黑莓。”

Sean Fenton，业务员，2002年到2012年：你收到了无数的聚会和仪式邀请。我不止一次对自己说，我简直不敢相信我竟然坐在商务舱，前往秘鲁、墨西哥和其它地方。

Washington：我在密歇根打橄榄球，和我在一起的有NFL的球员和教练。他们经常走过来对我说：“嗨，能不能给我搞一台黑莓？”于是我想，为什么不能和NFL达成商业合作呢？长话短说，我最终见到了Roger Goodell，他们邀请我们参加专题研讨会。我在技术峰会期间与32只支队球队会面，最终为31支球队定制了黑莓设备。唯一没有参与这个项目的是牛仔队，因为他们想让我们付钱才愿意使用。

Lidia Feraco，拉丁美洲市场部高级经理，2005年到2011年：在牙买加和特立尼达做推广时，我们安排了一场独家促销活动，邀请人们来迪厅参加。我们给参加活动的人指甲上涂上可擦洗的条形码纹身，人们可以用他们的黑莓扫描纹身来识别身份证号码。人们都说：“扫我吧，扫我吧。”随着活动进入高潮，人们越来越放得开了，他们把纹身涂在身体其它部位。于是，不再是夜店里老套的“嗨，能告诉我你的电话号码吗？”，而是“嗨，能告诉我你的PIN在哪儿吗？”

Gillenwater：我们当时为世界顶尖品牌工作，与这样一款好的产品密切相关让我非常兴奋。我妈妈也非常自豪，她喜欢看到我出现在菲律宾《城镇与国家》杂志的封面上。

Brendan Kenalty，客户管理，2007年到2010年：我们举办了一场盛大的音乐会，RIM摇滚？有热场表演，也有压轴大戏。Van Halen、Tragically Hip纷纷登台。一票难求，真是美好的时光。

Andrew Lysyk，项目协调员，2007年到1010年：我在2007年加入公司，是一个实习生。当时头脑中的印象是“我们是世界第一，我们把一切踩在脚下。”

Kenalty：我的团队名称是客户忠诚度和客户保持。人们都会问：“你在黑莓做客户保持工作？一个公司为什么需要这样的职能？”

黑莓的成长让有55万居民的沃特卢变成了加拿大的硅谷。据一家新兴公司Communitech提供的数据，今天，这里的1000家科技公司每年总收入达300亿美元。

Tyler Lessard，全球联盟和关系发展副总裁，2001年到2011年：RIM在前几年发展的优势在于，它可以吸引沃特卢大学的优秀人才，这里有全球公认的优秀计算机和工程专业学科。这所学校实际上与RIM只隔一条铁道。但同时，公司不大容易招募熟悉当地市场的人才。

Fenton：我来自安大略省的米西索加，离多伦多不远，距沃特卢只有一个小时的车程。如果没有特殊的事情，人们一般不会跑到那里。加入RIM之前，我在北电工作。实际上，我曾经拒绝过RIM三次，最后才同意加入。一进入公司我才发现，“我们只做一种产品吗？”公司发展得很快，这里没有复杂的流程和规定。在北电习惯了结构严谨的工作方式，我在这里看到了机会。

Jamie Pepper，技术支持代表和分析师，2003年到2012年：一些在股市中有投资的人大惊小怪他们赚了多少钱，我不知道是不是加拿大人都喜欢这样做，但我们中的大部分人对此不屑一顾，我们只是很高兴有这个机会。

Paula Dymond，渠道销售经理，2004年到2011年：Jim总是着眼于未来。你问他一个问题，他一般会转移话题长篇大论一番，然后说“我回答你的问题了吗？”我会说：“没有。”他有高屋建瓴的想法。每个人都有自己的目标，但你必须想清楚目标是什么。有时候你感觉公司就像是你自己的一样。

黑莓极受欢迎，公司必须努力满足市场需求，而且还要迎合消费者不断转换的口味。

Boudreau：4年时间里，公司员工从2000人增加到12000人，各种规章制度成指数级别增长。我开始看到，就像北电一样，官僚作风慢慢出现，有各种毫无意义的流程，决策要集体讨论决定。

Mousseau：我在一次全体员工会议上问了一个有关研发的问题。他们毫不客气地说：“噢，研发是那些不想在公司干下去的人做的事情。”这就像当众给我一个嘴巴。他们的意思就是说：“我们不要搞任何基础研发，只需要修复漏洞，做出一个完美的产品。我们可以再加一个菜单选项。”现在的菜单选项已经足够长了。

Lysyk：管理机构臃肿。你有一个主管，上边是经理、总监、高级总监，可能还有什么总监。有一次他们说只有5％到10％的工程专业员工，这对一家科技企业来说太不利了。

Washington：Lazaridis有时也会参加会议。就像是《低俗小说》，他打开一个盒子，里面装着闪着金光的设备。我们都迫切地想见到它。从2007年开始，他每次带来的东西越来越难吸引大家的关注。



Kenalty：所有的市场调查结果都显示“嗨，所有的人都想要所谓的糖块手机”，也就是直板手机。可是下一代黑莓出来的却是新Pearl Flip。销售部的人都傻了，“这是什么玩意？我们让你做一个大屏幕、触屏等功能的直板手机。”他们说：“是的，但是我们有了一个连接轴的新技术，看看它的效果！”这东西或许堆了满满一仓库。

Lysyk：质量也因此遭受影响。我在退货部工作过一段时间，有很多手机毫无原因地被退回来——硬件软件都没有问题。人们只是不再喜欢它了。

2007年6月，第一代iPhone投入市场。Lazaridis和Balsillie不但没有意识到它对黑莓市场统治地位的威胁，反而贬低苹果的设备，说它电池寿命短、安全性不高。

Lessard：你曾经见过微软和Palm在市场上投放的多款产品，人们都会说“噢，这东西将取代黑莓”。公司内部有一种自信，“这样的事情绝不会发生”。当苹果发布iPhone时，我们依然这样想。

Key：我记得有一次参加客户的会议，首席信息官拿着一个iPhone，而且很多高管都拿着iPhone。这引起了我的警惕。黑莓的大多数高管对此的态度是，“黑莓是安全的解决方案，它能保护公司的数据，可以完全掌控公司的业务运行。iPhone只是一个音乐播放器，一个玩具。”

Dymond：地方代表和运营商问我：“你们为什么不做广告？”我也在公司内部提过这个问题，得到的回答是“我们不需要”。RIM的成功完全取决于与运营商的良好关系，我不知道我们凭借什么让客户能够自己走上门来。

Washington：还有一件错过的事情，贾斯汀•比伯想代言黑莓。他说：“给我20万美元和20台设备，我就是你的品牌形象大使。”我们把这个计划交给市场部：这儿有一个加拿大孩子，他在这里长大，所有的新潮少男少女都会喜欢的。他们几乎是把我们赶出了会议室，他们说：“这小子就是个弄潮儿，红不了多长时间。”我在会上说：“这孩子或许会比RIM生存得更久。”所有人都笑了。

2008年5月，公司发布了黑莓Bold 9000，第二个月的股价达到最高值，148美元。当年秋天，第一代安卓系统手机问世。

Michaluk：当iPhone 3G和Bold 9000同时问世时，我立刻把Bold 9000丢到一边，因为它的浏览器根本无法使用。黑莓安装了一个无法使用的网页浏览器，这恐怕是蛋壳上的第一道缝。

Gillenwater：如果黑莓想要严肃对待消费者的需求，它必须彻底改变生产产品的思路、工艺、推广和销售策略。我们做过类似的事情，但都不彻底，半途而废。我们有机会做出改变，但当总部和高级管理层对这些系统问题置之不理时，像我这样的很多人选择了离开。

Kunal Gupta，Polar首席执行官，专门为公司设计在移动平台，包括黑莓，上发布信息的软件：当他们（在2008年）发布Storm时，整个公司发生了一些转折。我们拿到了一个早期设备原型。你点击一个功能，机器的反应速度很慢，甚至会死机。你已经习惯了每一个黑莓机型的优异性能，这东西感觉就像鸡肋。

Boudreau：Mike Lazaridis的确是硬件高手，但我不认为他能搞定用户软件。Mike依然用日历来安排他的计划，不是地图，也不是电话。公司越来越大，可他却不断为琐事分神。

2010年之前的几年，联合首席执行官Balsillie逐渐远离了公司经营的日常工作。他成立了一所国际关系学校，还曾经三次试图买下一直曲棍球队，但被NHL拒绝了。

Thomas Homer-Dixon，Balsillie国际关系学校政治系教授：2010年的夏天，我和Jim在北极的一艘破冰船上，参加为期一周的北极研讨会。当时的事情发生了一些变化，沙特阿拉伯、印度和其它国家都要求RIM向国家情报部分开放信息。在研讨会结束时，他向穿上的人发表了一个讲话。他说：“你知道，我来自彼得堡，是一个电器工人的儿子。很多参与成立一家资产达600亿美元的公司的人都喜欢回顾过去，认为我们的成功来源于英明的决策。我要和你们讲的是一个有关运气的故事——在关键时刻出现的重要运气。”他提到了RIM曾经遇到过的6个危急时刻，运气和睿智让他们走上了正确的道路。有人问：“你觉得接下来会发生什么？”他说：“这很难讲。市场飞速扩张，我们的市场份额有可能逐渐缩小，谁知道呢？”

这番话里既有现实主义思想，也有宿命论的成份。Jim意识到他面对着罕见的历史问题，他可以再使一把力，但不得不后退一步看看命运的真面目。他已经开始实现人生的下一个目标，我觉得有点遗憾，但我也在想：“他是个脚踏实地的人，经历过很多历史性的重大时刻，已经准备好向下一个目标前进了。”他对事情的严重性有清醒的认识，并不是在欺骗自己。

Estill：我在2010年离开董事会，那时董事会的规模已经足够大了。我是一个企业家，一个创新者，我根本不知道自己是否适合这个位置。

2010年4月，苹果发布了历史上最成功的产品之一iPad。一年后，黑莓的PlayBook平板电脑上市，口号是“业余者退让”。但它失败了。

Alkarim Nasser，软件开发商Bnotions创始人：2004年夏天，我在温莎大学做计算机设计和商业开发工作。我们在午餐时间，边吃三明治边热烈讨论，似乎有无穷无尽的工作机会。我后来创办了一家公司Bnotions，2009年设计的第一款软件就是基于黑莓平台。一直到2010年我们也没有放弃黑莓平台。但是当没有电子邮件功能的PlayBook发布时，这是棺材上的最后一根钉子。我们不再提供黑莓软件服务，消费者们也不需要了。

2012年1月，公司的市场份额和股价不断下跌，黑莓宣布联合首席执行官Balsillie和Lazaridis辞职。2007年加入黑莓的前西门子高管Thorsten Heins担任CEO职务。（Heins没有回应接受采访的要求。）

MacLeod：Jim和Mike的离开，加上新官上任，对公司影响巨大。直到那个时候为止，公司的一切都来自这两个人，他们是我们DNA的一部分，Jim和Mike与RIM是密不可分的。但是Thorsten认同RIM的企业文化，与团队的关系也很不错，我们相信会有一些潜移默化的改变。

Gillenwater：内部提拔CEO让我有点担心，最主要是害怕执行层面的问题得不到解决：一拖再拖的交货期、漏洞百出的产品、脆弱的营销手段。



2013年，RIM改名为“黑莓”，更荒唐的是，任命Alicia Keys为全球创意总监。它发布了第一款黑莓10操作系统的智能手机，Heins说它将提供“超越你所见过的一切用户体验”。

Michaluk：黑莓10的变化太大了，没有滚轮，没有后退键，你对黑莓的一切记忆都被丢到门外。


全球创意总监Alicia Keys。

MacLeod：我们现在的确危机重重，这是一个商业趋势的必然现象。但是有一些事情也让我信心百倍，我们有很多宝贵的财产，IP地址、技术。我们文化的核心是创新，而且我们身处一个迅猛发展的行业。如果我们是在保险业或者铁路行业，我或许还没这么乐观，因为那些行业的创新周期需要一百多年。我们现在的时空里，度量标准是月，顶多是年。你完全可以在下一个技术浪潮中捕捉到创新机会，定义下一次游戏的规则。

2013年8月，Fairfax财务控股公司总裁Prem Watsa宣布，黑莓有意出售，他将退出公司董事会。9月23日，Fairfax公开表示愿意以9美元一股的价格收购。黑莓最新一个季度的业绩亏损9.65亿美元，它将削减4500名员工。

公司依然在消耗资金，现金和短期投资在第二财政季度下降了5亿美元，变为23亿美元。11月，Fairfax的47亿美元竞价失败。Heins被免职，接替他的是前Sybase总裁John Chen。12月2日，有传言说黑莓将彻底退出硬件市场，Chen向所有黑莓用户发表了一封公开信。他写道：“我们‘有意出售’的标记已经取消，我们将留在行业中。有关我们退出市场的报道被夸大了。”

Jeff Gadway，现任产品营销高级经理：在核心用户群中讨论科技行业的品牌，会发现有些品牌一蹶不振。但是人们对黑莓依然有好感。如果人们对这个品牌完全失去了好感，我就很难理解我们究竟在做什么。人们希望看到黑莓成功。





原文：

In 1984, Mike Lazaridis, an engineering student at the University of Waterloo, and Douglas Fregin, an engineering student at the University of Windsor, founded an electronics and computer science consulting company called Research In Motion, or RIM. For years the company tinkered in obscurity, until it focused on a breakthrough technology: an easy, secure, and effective device that allowed workers to send and receive e-mails while away from the office. They called it the BlackBerry.

RIM grew into one of the world’s most valuable tech companies. The BlackBerry became the indispensable accessory of business executives, heads of state, and Hollywood celebrities—until iPhone and Android came along and spoiled the party. Today the company, which has been renamed, simply, BlackBerry (BBRY), is burning through cash as sales keep falling. On Nov. 21, BlackBerry shares closed at just above $6, the lowest it’s been in almost 15 years.

Over the last two months, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to dozens of current and former BlackBerry employees, vendors, and associates. Here is their account of the thrill of BlackBerry’s ascension—and the heartache of watching its demise.

Video: No Thanks: Why BlackBerry Rejected Bieber's Help
Gary Mousseau, eighth employee at RIM and software developer and manager, 1991-2007: I first met Mike Lazaridis when he interviewed me. Mike is a very good orator and communicator of technology. He was a convincing-enough soul that I ended up taking a 13 percent pay cut to join RIM. I started in 1991. My first job was to build my own desk. There was no more room for me. They put me in the fax reception area. I was the guy receiving packages. I sat beside the fax machine, which was not fun. It was a small place. It was crowded. We were above a pizza joint.

In 1992, Chief Executive Officer Lazaridis hires Jim Balsillie, a Harvard Business School graduate, to help manage the cash-strapped business. Balsillie takes out a second mortgage and invests $250,000 in return for a one-third stake and soon becomes co-CEO. (Balsillie and Lazaridis declined to be interviewed for this story.)

Co-CEOs Lazaridis (left) and Balsillie in 2003

Patrick Spence, senior vice president and managing director for global sales and marketing, 1998-2012: Jim was really strategic in terms of how he was thinking and really ambitious in terms of what we wanted to do. You don’t meet many Canadians that are ambitious in that kind of way.

Mousseau: We were creating all these random products over wireless, [but] none of them had all the dominoes in place to really succeed. They were just interesting. Mike is an electrical engineer. That was his forte, his love. We eventually decided to replace a very large bulky radio modem that IBM (IBM) used for [basic personal communication] service. This was the RIM 900. It was a clamshell device. Some would affectionately call it the bullfrog. We sold a lot of them.

Jim Estill, member of the board, 1997-2010: In the early days at RIM, people had no idea what a smartphone was. People had no idea what two-way pagers were. But they had such a cool factor. You’d take one out, and everybody would want to touch it and play with it and see what it was.

Mousseau: Mike and I and a few others got obsessed with auto-forwarding our Exchange mailbox messages to our belts. But at that time you couldn’t reply to anything. So one day, Mike came in and said he had decided to nix all the 30 software projects that we were spinning our wheels on. He said, “We’re going to create a solution to this two-mailbox problem.”

RIM goes public in 1997, listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange; shares would begin trading on Nasdaq two years later. Balsillie establishes “the doughnut rule,” in which employees caught talking about the share price would have to buy doughnuts for everyone at the company. The following year the company releases the RIM 950 wireless device, featuring a miniature qwerty keyboard.

Bruce Poon Tip, Canadian entrepreneur, founder of G Adventures: I was part of a group called the Innovators Alliance. Jim [Balsillie] came in and held up this prototype that was in the shape of a blackberry. It was dark blue and had grooves where the keys would be. When he said, “It’s called a BlackBerry,” people started rolling their eyes. They thought it was a stupid name. This was the height of the dot-com boom. He had this dream of people getting e-mails on the move, and the feeling at the time was, “Why would anyone want their e-mails away from the office?”

950
Release date: 1999
The first BlackBerry device had e-mail and not much else

6210
Release date: 2003
Smaller, lighter, better screen, more memory—and a built-in cell phone

Curve 8300
Release date: 2007
One of the last BlackBerrys before iPhone completely reset the market

Pearl Flip 8220
Release date: 2008
The Pearl Flip arrived just as consumers shifted to “candy bar” models

Bold 9000
Release date: 2008
Introduced around the same time as the first Android-powered smartphone

Torch 9800
Release date: 2010
The Torch tried to have it both ways: keyboard and touchscreen

Z10
Release date: 2013
Nice camera, slick interface, nowhere near enough buyers

In Canada at the time, dot-coms were notorious for ripping off U.S. ideas. Bid.com was supposed to be the EBay (EBAY) for Canada; JobShark was the Monster.com (MWW). They’d get funding and generate all this excitement. Meanwhile, up walks Jim, who had a truly revolutionary idea, and nobody really thought it would work. It’s an inferiority thing.

Mousseau: About a week before we launched the 950, Motorola (GOOG) launched the Page Writer 250. It was almost a visual clone. We s––– ourselves. Oh my God, they are going to destroy our market. How did they do that? Do we have a leak? But they launched it with no service. It was just a piece of hardware. I think they thought it would just replace other pagers, and it languished.

From early on, RIM focuses its sales and marketing efforts on corporate customers, not consumers.

Photographs (from top) by Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times/Redux; Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Mousseau: The marketing team came up with the strategy of launching the desktop redirector [which forwarded messages and data to and from a mobile device] by seeding it with all these CTOs and CEOs. All they had to do was install this piece of software on their desk and leave their computer on. That’s it. Just buy this device. Load this software. And it just worked.

Spence: About a week after we launched, one of the orders came in. It was from Michael Dell. We didn’t have a lot of promotion at that point. He had found BlackBerry basically on the Web. I sent him an e-mail: “Hey, Michael, I saw that you placed an order. If you need any help don’t hesitate to let me know.” I got an e-mail back in like 30 seconds, like, “Thank you, I’m super excited about it.”

Estill: At first, they were quite expensive. But ultimately, the cost came down. It became necessary. It was like when the fax machine came out. You had to have one in order to live in business.

Kevin Michaluk, founder of CrackBerry.com, a news site: BlackBerry was a darling of enterprise. If you had a BlackBerry you were an important person, as at that time a lot of people didn’t have a smartphone. It was almost a status symbol within the company. It was the most intuitive communication device. With that blinking red light, it had that addictive quality.

Chris Key, global account manager and carrier sales and relationship manager, 2001-09: When I met with the CTO of a major company, he referred to BlackBerry as “digital heroin.”

Spence: We knew we had hit it big when the AOL (AOL)/Time Warner (TWX) deal went down. Jerry Levin and Steve Case talked about how the deal had basically been done over BlackBerrys on the weekend. That was one of those moments when I was just like, holy cow, we’re really part of the zeitgeist.

Andrew MacLeod, current BlackBerry managing director for U.S. and Canada: At one point I saw a store display for a BlackBerry in a shopping mall in Cyprus. It was sort of an out-of-body experience.

Vincent Washington, senior business development manager, 2001-11: Everyone started to see we were onto something big. If you’re in a movie—it’s that scene when they cut to everybody going to Vegas.

Although its marketing strategy focused on corporate buyers, the brand becomes a hit with consumers. Oprah Winfrey declares it a “favorite thing” in 2003. By the end of 2004, it’s sold through 80 carriers in 40 countries and has more than 2 million subscribers.

Key: In 2004, I shipped off to India. I became very active in feeding devices to Bollywood celebrities. I recall going to Bombay fashion week, and I took a box-load of BlackBerrys. A friend of mine is an editor for Vogue. She put me in the VIP section, and I drank Champagne and ate strawberries and handed out BlackBerrys to all the celebrities.

Jesse Boudreau, vice president, BlackBerry software excellence, 2004-08: In 2006 the BlackBerry Pearl came out, and it was the “candy bar” format, and it had a track wheel, and it had really good connectivity. It was really nice for scrolling around, and it could play video, and it had a camera. Up until that point, Mike had said, “That’s crazy, why would I ever want a camera?” All of a sudden BlackBerry becomes a consumer play.

Ray Gillenwater, managing director, 2007-12: My first night in Jakarta, sitting in the sky at the Ritz-Carlton, I was negotiating a contract with our sole distributor for more money than I’d ever discussed in my life. It was such a surreal time for me. I was only 24 years old. If memory serves, I spent 180 nights at the Ritz in my first year.

Washington: I was on a team called the Fast 100. We were tasked with preparing carriers for launch. There was a group of us. We went around the world from Germany to Brazil to Chile. Three years went in a blink of an eye. There wasn’t a meeting I couldn’t get. All I had to say was, “Hey, I’m bringing the BlackBerrys.”

Sean Fenton, account executive, 2002-2012: You got a lot of invitations to parties and events. There were many times I said to myself, I can’t believe I’m sitting here in business class, going to Peru, Mexico, and all these places.

Washington: I played football at Michigan. Some of my guys play in the NFL and coach in the NFL. They were always reaching out to me and saying, “Hey, can you send me a BlackBerry?” So I was like, why don’t we just go after the NFL as a business? Long story short, I ended up meeting with Roger Goodell. They invited us into a symposium. I met with all 32 teams at their technical summit. We had 31 of 32 teams standardized on BlackBerry. The only team that didn’t go for it was the Cowboys, because they wanted us to pay them to use the device.

Lidia Feraco, senior marketing manager for Latin America, 2005-11: In the Jamaica/Trinidad launch, we did an exclusive campaign where people would come into a discotheque. We would give them temporary henna bar code tattoos, and people could use their BlackBerrys to scan the tattoos to get people’s [personal identification] numbers. People would say, “Scan me, scan me.” And as the evening went on, people would get more risqué and put the tattoos on different parts of their body. So instead of asking, “Hey, can I get your number,” the conventional line in a nightclub, it was more, “Hey, can I get your PIN?”

Gillenwater: We were one of the top brands in the world at the time. I was very happy to be associated with such a good product. My mom was especially proud. She loved seeing me get featured in Town & Country magazine in the Philippines.

Brendan Kenalty, customer base management, 2007-10: We did a huge, surprise concert, RIM Rocks! There were pre-parties and post-parties. Van Halen. Tragically Hip. It was such a hot ticket. That was a really fun time.

Andrew Lysyk, project coordinator, 2007-10: I started in 2007 as an intern. There was the mindset: “We’re No. 1. We’re killing it.”

Kenalty: I was in the loyalty and retention group. People would be, like, “You’re in BlackBerry retention? Why would anyone need that?”
BlackBerry’s growth turns Waterloo—population 550,000—into Canada’s Silicon Valley. Today the region’s 1,000 tech companies collectively generate some $30 billion in annual revenue, according to Communitech, a startup coalition.

Tyler Lessard, vice president for global alliances and developer relations, 2001-11: One of RIM’s strengths for the first number of years was its ability to attract talent from the University of Waterloo, which really is a globally recognized computer science and engineering school. It was literally across the train tracks from the school. At the same time, it was difficult to attract talent that wasn’t already familiar with the local region.

Fenton: I’m from Mississauga, Ontario, which is right outside of Toronto. Waterloo is literally an hour away. It’s someplace you don’t really go unless you have a reason to go there. Prior to working at RIM, I worked at Nortel (NRTLQ). I actually turned RIM down three times before I took a job there. Once I got there, I looked around and said, “Wait, there’s no other product that does this?” Things were moving so quickly. The company didn’t have a lot of bureaucracy and rules. Coming from Nortel, which was a structured environment, I saw the opportunity.

Jamie Pepper, technical support representative and analyst 2003-12: There were some people who were into the stock and freaking out about how much money they were going to make. I don’t know if it’s just a cliché Canadian thing, but the majority of us really didn’t care. We were happy to just have the opportunity.

Paula Dymond, channel sales manager, 2004-11: Jim [Balsillie] was always thinking about the big picture. You’d ask him a question, and he’d go off on a tangent. And then he’d ask, “Did I answer your question?” I’d say, “Well, not really.” His thoughts were up in the clouds. Everybody was given their goals, and you had to figure it out. You almost felt like you were running your own business.

As BlackBerry’s popularity explodes, the company struggles to keep up with demand—and with rapidly changing consumer tastes.

Boudreau: In four years we went from [approximately] 2,000 to 12,000 people. Having been at Nortel, the politics that get played is exponential. I was starting to see it be like Nortel. There was bureaucracy. There was pointless process. You were getting decisions by committee.

Mousseau: I was in a town hall meeting, and I asked a question about research and development. And they just kind of shot me down: “Oh, research is for people who don’t want to actually work anymore.” It was kind of a real slap in the face. Like, “We don’t need raw research here. Let’s just get all the bugs out and make it perfect. Let’s add another menu item that does this or that.” The menu items were getting so thick.
Lysyk: There was so much management. You’d have your team lead, then your manager, director, then senior director, then another director. At one point they said it was [only] 5 to 10 percent engineering. That’s pretty hard for a tech organization.

Washington: Lazaridis used to come into these meetings, and it was almost like Pulp Fiction, where he’d open the case and there would be this golden glow of devices. We were all super eager to see it. Around 2007 the glow was getting a lot smaller every time he came around.

Kenalty: All the market research was saying, “Hey, everybody wants what they call candy bar phones,” which is the nonflip phone. And the next [BlackBerry] product that came down the pipe was the new Pearl Flip. All the sales guys were, like, “What the hell? We asked you for big screens, touchscreens, more of these candy bar styles.” And they were, like, “Yeah, but we came up with this really cool technology about the hinge. Look at how this works!” There’s probably still a warehouse full of them.

Lysyk: Quality definitely was suffering. At that point I was on the returns line, and there were a bunch of devices being returned for no apparent reason—no hardware issues or software issues. People just didn’t like it anymore.

In June 2007, the first iPhone hits the stores. Far from recognizing the potential threat to BlackBerry’s dominance, Lazaridis and Balsillie publicly belittle Apple’s (AAPL) device, criticizing its short battery life and weaker security.

Lessard: You saw these iterative products coming to the market from Microsoft (MSFT) and Palm (HPQ). There were so many devices where people said, “Oh, this one will take on BlackBerry.” There was a sense of confidence in the company where we thought, “It’s not going to happen.” The same thing definitely happened when Apple introduced the iPhone.

Key: I remember being at a [customer] meeting and the CIO was carrying an iPhone. I found out that a lot of senior executives … were carrying iPhones. That was a big red flag for me. The attitude for most of the people in the senior leadership at BlackBerry was, “The BlackBerry solution is secure. It’ll lock down company data. It’ll allow the organization to maintain complete control over the business use of the device. IPhone is a music player and a consumer toy.”

Dymond: The field reps and carriers were asking, “Why don’t you guys advertise?” I do remember asking the question, and it came down to, “We don’t need to.” Being successful at RIM was all about being close to the carriers. I’m not sure what we were doing to get customers in the door.

Washington: One thing we missed out on was that Justin Bieber wanted to rep BlackBerry. He said, “Give me $200,000 and 20 devices, and I’m your brand ambassador,” basically. And we pitched that to marketing: Here’s a Canadian kid, he grew up here, all the teeny-boppers will love that. They basically threw us out of the room. They said, “This kid is a fad. He’s not going to last.” I said at the meeting: “This kid might outlive RIM.” Everyone laughed.

In May 2008, the company releases the BlackBerry Bold 9000. The following month, shares peak at $148. That fall, the first Android phones go on sale.

Michaluk: When iPhone 3G and Bold 9000 came out at the same time, I ripped the [Bold 9000] apart in an article because the browser was completely unusable. BlackBerry launched that Web browser without it really working. That Bold 9000 browser was one of the cracks in the egg.

Gillenwater: If BlackBerry was going to be serious about consumers, they needed to make a fundamental shift in the way products were thought about, created, iterated, marketed, and sold. This was done but never to the extent necessary. It was always a partial effort. There was a period of time when this could have been corrected, but when it became apparent that HQ and senior leadership were not addressing systemic issues, people like myself left.

Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar, which develops applications for companies to publish on mobile platforms, including BlackBerry devices: When they launched the Storm [in 2008], that was a moment of pause. We got an early prototype. When you clicked something, it would take longer than it should. It would crash or freeze. You were used to every BlackBerry product being a winner. This one felt like an afterthought.

Boudreau: Mike Lazaridis really got the hardware. I don’t think he had a good handle on the consumer app side of things. Mike is going to go through on calendar and do esoteric things to see if it’s broke. Did he do it on maps? No. Did he do it on photos? No. The company was getting bigger, and he had all these other distractions.

In the latter half of the 2000s, Co-CEO Balsillie distances himself from day-to-day operations. He founds a school of international affairs and makes three attempts to buy a National Hockey League team, a move opposed by the NHL.

Thomas Homer-Dixon, professor of political science at the Balsillie School of International Affairs: I was with Jim on an icebreaker in the Arctic in the summer of 2010 for a weeklong seminar on Arctic issues. That’s when things really turned. Saudi Arabia, India, and others were saying RIM had to open up to national intelligence. He gave a talk at the end of the week to everybody on board. He started out by saying, “You know, I’m an electrician’s son from Peterborough. A lot of people who are involved in building a $60 billion company like to look back and attribute their success to smart moves along the way. What I’m going to tell you is a story about luck—and extraordinary luck at key moments along the way.” He identified six moments where RIM could have failed. A combination of luck and acumen had put them on the right path. Someone asked, “What do you think is going to happen now?” He said, “Well, it’s really hard to say. This is a rapidly expanding market. We may have a diminishing share of that market, but who knows?”

There was a certain realism, a fatalism. Jim realized he was engaged in a rare historic phenomenon. He could push but also had to step back and see fate unfold. He was already starting to engage in the next things in his life. I found it a bit discouraging. But I also thought, “Here’s a guy who’s got his feet on the ground. He’s been part of a really interesting historical moment, and he’s getting ready to move on.” He was fully aware of the seriousness. He wasn’t deluding himself at all.

Estill: I left the board in 2010. It had grown to a size where it became very corporate on the board. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a startup guy. I had no idea that essentially the run was over.

In April 2010, Apple introduces the iPad, one of the most successful consumer products ever. A year later, the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet goes on sale. Slogan: “Amateur hour is over.” It flops.

Alkarim Nasser, founder and managing partner of app maker Bnotions: I worked there in the summer of 2004 as a computer science and business major at the University of Windsor. We’d get hot lunches, sandwiches. It seemed like the job opportunities were endless. I ended up starting a company called Bnotions. One of the first apps we developed was on the BlackBerry platform, in 2009, for Ernst & Young. … We didn’t really give up on them until late 2010, when the PlayBook launched without e-mail. That was the nail in the coffin. We stopped offering a BlackBerry app. Customers stopped asking for it.

In January 2012, with its market share and stock price falling, BlackBerry announces that Balsillie and Lazaridis will resign as co-CEOs. The chief operating officer for product and sales, Thorsten Heins, a former Siemens (SI) executive who had joined BlackBerry in 2007, becomes CEO. (Heins did not respond to requests to be interviewed.)

MacLeod: It was obviously a huge deal when Jim and Mike decided to pull back a little bit, and there was a new leader in place. Up until that point everything had come from these two guys. They were so much a part of our DNA. Jim and Mike and RIM were kind of inseparable. But having someone like Thorsten, who was a part of the culture and who had been with the team for a while, there was an element of soft transference. He was a known quantity.

Gillenwater: I was very worried when an insider was chosen as the new CEO. I was especially worried when suboptimal execution continued: missed delivery dates, buggy products, weak marketing.

In 2013, RIM changes its name to BlackBerry. In a much-ridiculed move, it names Alicia Keys the company’s global creative director. It rolls out its first smartphones powered by the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which Heins says will offer “a user experience that adapts beyond anything you have seen before.”

Michaluk: BB10 was too different. They killed the track pad. They killed the back button, so all your muscle memory of how things work goes out the door.

BlackBerry Global Creative Director Alicia Keys

MacLeod: We’re taking some knocks right now. That’s part of this business cycle. But I’m heartened by the fact that we have a ton of assets—IP assets, technology assets. We have a culture that at its core is about innovation. And we’re in an industry that moves incredibly fast. If we were in the insurance industry or the railroad industry I might be a little less optimistic, because the innovation cycle there is a hundred-plus years. But we’re in a space that’s measured in months or, at most, years. In tech, you can make some moves and catch an innovation cycle in a wave and really help redefine the stakes of the next game.

In August 2013, Prem Watsa, the head of Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH:CN), announces that with BlackBerry exploring a possible sale, he would be stepping down from the board. On Sept. 23, Fairfax makes public a letter of intent to acquire BlackBerry for $9 per share and take the company private. BlackBerry reveals a $965 million quarterly loss and says it will be laying off 4,500 employees.

The company continues to go through its money. Cash and short-term investments decreased by almost $500 million in the second fiscal quarter, to $2.3 billion. In November, Fairfax Financial’s $4.7 billion buyout bid collapses. Heins is ousted as chief executive and replaced by former Sybase (SAP) chief John Chen. On Dec. 2, with speculation rampant that BlackBerry might exit the hardware business entirely, Chen publishes an open letter to BlackBerry’s customers. “Our ‘for sale’ sign has been taken down and we are here to stay,” he writes. “[R]eports of our death are greatly exaggerated.”

Jeff Gadway, current senior manager for product marketing: When you go into the focus groups, and you talk to customers about brands in the technology space, there are brands that don’t come up at all anymore. And then there’s BlackBerry. People have fond sentiments about BlackBerry. If people didn’t have that affinity toward the brand, I would be challenged to really believe in what we’re doing. People want to see BlackBerry succeed.

ximalaya

什么创意总监都是虚头巴脑的家伙。

爱哲123

并不是玩手机的都发财，同行不同利啊