Last updated on 2012-09-26, by Tony

5 Stages in the Evolution of BlackBerry Mobile

As an outdated tycoon in mobile market, RIM finds itself in a hazard if not desperate situation. Moreover, after the company’s decision to fire a large number of employees and delay the releasing date of BlackBerry 10 to early 2013, rumors about the death of BlackBerry can easily win the market. As the latest BlackBerry system bearing loftily expectation, BlackBerry 10 seemed to be the last and only chance left for BlackBerry mobile. Luckily, according to the latest news, the mobile maker will test BlackBerry 10 from October 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, BlackBerry mobile not only experiences system updates from BlackBerry OS to BlackBerry 7, but also gets through major ups and downs. From a dominator in mobile market to a follower, the fall of BlackBerry partly owns to the rising of competitors like iPhone mobiles and partly to the defects of BlackBerry mobile. Actually, the evolution of BlackBerry mobile can be generally summarized into five stages. Therefore, this post will view the evolution of BlackBerry mobile in five stages.

1. The Birth of BlackBerry Mobile: 1999-2000

BlackBerry mobile was released to the market in 1999 as a device exclusively designed as an email pager, with which users can send and receive emails freely and easily. The mobile was well-known for its high-level security and fast response speed. OS 2.0 based BlackBerry mobiles like RIM 850 soon became a favored choice in the market. In the first stage of the evolution of BlackBerry mobile, BlackBerry mobiles were used by people with high social statues. As a consequence, BlackBerry mobile was frequently used as a tool to show off.

2. The Success of BlackBerry Mobile: 2001-2007

The real success of BlackBerry phone started from the famous terrorist attack in 2001. At that time, while most communicative devices had lost their power, BlackBerry users surprisingly found their devices could work as good as usual. As a consequence, BlackBerry mobiles were used by senators and governmental leaders. Since then, BlackBerry mobile gained its fame in mobile market. In 2007, the company not only got 7 million BlackBerry users but also elevated its market value to over 42 billion dollars.

During this period, BlackBerry mobiles like RIM 5800, RIM 8700 and RIM 8100 came out, running mobile systems ranging from OS 3.6 to OS 5.0. Of course various new features were added to those BlackBerry mobiles. Users could not only connect to Hosted BlackBerry Enterprise Server but also took full advantages of the colorful display, Bluetooth and SureType technology.

3. A Turning point of BlackBerry Mobile: 2007

In 2007, the first iPhone was released, bringing the mobile market to a new era. However, without obvious decline in mobile sale, the mobile maker had underestimated this competition. The fall of Adobe Flash started from the popularization of Apple devices, so did BlackBerry mobile. Though new mobiles like BlackBerry 8310 was equipped with Wi-Fi connection and Facebook integration, it was still not enough to compete with iPhone. In 2007, BlackBerry mobile won the market but lost the future to iPhone mobile.

4. The Fall of BlackBerry Mobile: 2008-2012

In recent years, BlackBerry not only witnesses the invasion of iPhone mobiles and Android mobiles, but also sees a drastic drop in market share. In less than a few years, BlackBerry will even lose market position in America to Nokia. Though there are several screen based BlackBerry mobiles like Bold 9000, none of them turn out to be a market hit. Besides those powerful competitors, a key factor to the fall of BlackBerry mobile lies in its own defects. After so many years, BlackBerry is still sticking to its old and outdated system and focuses more on the developing of QWERTY based smartphone. As a consequence, the mobile maker had to lay off two thousand employees to maintain its existence.

5. The Future of BlackBerry Mobile: 2013-?

After witnessing the rising of Nokia mobile after replacing Symbian system with Windows system, RIM decided to make the latest BlackBerry mobile a real hit in the market. The long-rumored BlackBerry 10 will be quite different from previous BlackBerry mobile systems. To make sure they can have an amazing operating system, RIM had purchased several software companies beforehand. Even the decision to push of the releasing date of BlackBerry 10 is to make sure the system can be as flawless as possible.

In other words, RIM has put all its bets on the success of BlackBerry 10. Once the system is favored, BlackBerry mobile may become the mainstream mobile again. If not, they will disappear in the mobile market forever. However, Black Berry 10 based mobile will need to compete with powerful mobiles like iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia 920. Therefore, this stage is the most important and may be the last stage in the evolution of BlackBerry mobile. What’s the fate of BlackBerry mobile? The answer will be given in 2013.