BlackBerry did not fail in a day. The huge mobile phone manufacturer did signed the dotted lines to sell itself to Fairfax Holdings recently, and there’s a story behind it.
- Shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon turned to Motorola and Google instead.
- In 2012, one-time co-CEO Jim Balsillie quit the board and cut all ties to BlackBerry in protest after his plan to shift focus to instant-messaging software, which had been opposed by founder Mike Lazaridis, was killed by current CEO Thorsten Heins.
- Mr. Lazaridis opposed the launch plan for the BlackBerry 10 phones and argued strongly in favour of emphasizing keyboard devices. But Mr. Heins and his executives did not take the advice and launched the touchscreen Z10, with disastrous results
The story by The Globe and The Mail reveals most of the things that happened at the company before they agreed to sell. And the story begins in 2007.