Jim Balsillie, former BlackBerry co-chief executive, finally speaks out since leaving the company in 2012. In an interview with Associated Press, the mogul admitted that Apple's introduction of the iPhone and BlackBerry's rushed attempt to match it was devastating for the once iconic company, usnews.com reports.
Balsillie admitted that he knew BlackBerry was not at the level of caliber with Apple's iPhone when they were released in 2007, and even more when 'Storm', their buggy touchscreen device, suffered a "100 per cent return rate".
"Devastating," that's how he described the result of their rush to compete. It is also because of that failure that they got sacked by their largest customer, Verizon.
Pioneered in 1999, BlackBerry made a big cultural impact when they provided on-the-go business users to wirelessly access emails. However, Apple slammed them by proving that phones can be used for more than just phone calls and emails.
"With Storm we tried to do too much. It was a touch display, it was a clickable display, it had new applications, and it was all done in an incredibly short period of time, and it blew up on us," Balsillie tells in an article by The Daily Telegraph.
"That was the time I knew we couldn't compete on high-end hardware."
Although they maintained their status as the world's fastest growing company status for another 2 years - thanks to the sales of their low-end devices in emerging markets - it was not enough to stop things from shifting for the Canadian company.
In the same report, he shares how the partnership between wireless carrier AT&T and Apple and with the former providing the iPhone maker carte blanche and unlimited bandwidth to develop fast and full internet browsing and video downloads made it impossible for BlackBerry to adapt.
"It was difficult. It was a real shock to the company."
Balsillie, when he was still with the company, strongly believed that they needed to open up their popular BlackBerry messenger service to other smartphone platforms since it is the services where they make the most money and not the hardware, as many people believe.
It is just after he left the company that BlackBerry allowed BBM on other platforms the same time messaging apps like WhatsApp became popular.
Back in 2009, BlackBerry commanded nearly 50 per cent share of the US smartphone market with a market value of $83 billion in 2008, and today holding a miniscule fraction and their market value plummeting to $5 billion, says the article.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company is now focused on transforming into an enterprise security and software company and hopes to stay relevant. The ex co-chief executive wishes the current management the best of luck and proudly says that he still uses a BlackBerry Bold and always will.
