1
00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,120
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:14,200
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

3
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,600
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer over here,

4
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and it is a

5
00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:24,320
Speaker 1: Faraday That means it is time for a tech Stuff

6
00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:29,960
Speaker 1: classic episode. This episode originally aired on November seven, two

7
00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:34,159
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. It is the story of Rim or Research

8
00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:37,920
Speaker 1: in Motion. That would be the company that makes BlackBerry.

9
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,199
Speaker 1: Where did they come from and what happened with that

10
00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 1: company up to two thousand eleven? At any rate, Sit back,

11
00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:49,480
Speaker 1: relax and enjoy this classic episode, the story of Rim.

12
00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:52,920
Speaker 1: He could play a guitar just like he was ringing

13
00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:57,200
Speaker 1: a bell. Nice of you to be good. Yeah, see

14
00:00:57,240 --> 00:00:59,160
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta make a leap on that one.

15
00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:02,960
Speaker 1: It's not just the long Who who made that song famous?

16
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 1: And what was that guy's name? And uh no, it

17
00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:11,119
Speaker 1: makes sense. We're gonna talk about the story of Rim. Yes,

18
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:15,039
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I think RIM is a less

19
00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:18,240
Speaker 1: famous name than the name of its flagship product. But

20
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:20,280
Speaker 1: we are talking about Research in Motion, which is a

21
00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:24,080
Speaker 1: Canadian company. Uh. Several people have written in to ask

22
00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:26,000
Speaker 1: us if we could talk about it. Yeah, lots of

23
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:28,759
Speaker 1: lots of people were interested in this, and we've referred

24
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:31,479
Speaker 1: to RIM quite a few times in other podcasts because

25
00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:36,040
Speaker 1: the flagship product that Chris was alluding to is the BlackBerry,

26
00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:39,319
Speaker 1: which is one of the smartphones that really kind of

27
00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 1: uh well, really, the BlackBerry was the smartphone for the

28
00:01:42,959 --> 00:01:46,119
Speaker 1: longest time. I mean, the BlackBerry line was pretty much

29
00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:49,600
Speaker 1: the smartphone that everyone was familiar with, and very few

30
00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:55,320
Speaker 1: people outside of the corporate world owned. But uh, you know,

31
00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:58,480
Speaker 1: RIM became famous because they had the company had this

32
00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:02,200
Speaker 1: line of smartphones and they had kind of a almost

33
00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:05,040
Speaker 1: a lock on the smartphone market. I mean really the

34
00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: only major competitor in the United States anyway, and other

35
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:10,079
Speaker 1: parts of the world it was different, but in the

36
00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:13,200
Speaker 1: United States the other major competitor was Palm, So you

37
00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:15,639
Speaker 1: had like the Palm Trio and then you had the BlackBerry,

38
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:19,600
Speaker 1: and you had people who were fanatically devoted to either,

39
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:23,480
Speaker 1: although BlackBerry again still had more of a corporate kind

40
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:27,920
Speaker 1: of culture to it because they RIM had incorporated the

41
00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: Microsoft Exchange server software in the BlackBerry form factor very

42
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:36,679
Speaker 1: early on, so it was very useful for anyone who

43
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,400
Speaker 1: worked for a company that used Microsoft exchange servers, and

44
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:42,720
Speaker 1: that's quite a few of them. Of course, lots of

45
00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:46,280
Speaker 1: people are using lots of companies are using Outlook essentially

46
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:49,280
Speaker 1: as their main male uh feature that you know, there

47
00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:52,400
Speaker 1: are other companies that use different servers for email, but

48
00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:56,120
Speaker 1: the Microsoft Exchange server is incredibly popular. But before we

49
00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:57,720
Speaker 1: get into all of that, we kind of need to

50
00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:02,400
Speaker 1: go and talk about the founding of this company, which

51
00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:07,359
Speaker 1: goes all the way back to nine Yeah yeah, now

52
00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:09,960
Speaker 1: of course. Uh. Actually, and in in a way it

53
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:13,560
Speaker 1: goes back a little farther than that, um, you know,

54
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,880
Speaker 1: and you'd have to look to the University of Waterloo

55
00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:22,320
Speaker 1: in Ontario, Canada, and uh, basically, uh, there was a

56
00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:26,800
Speaker 1: student there named Mike Lazaridis and uh, you know he

57
00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: was he was into electrical engineering. He was in a

58
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,680
Speaker 1: computer science and uh he had been working with a

59
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,520
Speaker 1: company that, uh maybe we should talk about in the future.

60
00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:39,160
Speaker 1: I don't know, Control Data, UM long known as a

61
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:43,400
Speaker 1: one of the computer pioneers. UM. And he had been

62
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:47,880
Speaker 1: working with that that company when he was in college. UM.

63
00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,680
Speaker 1: But basically he was working on a way to uh

64
00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:54,440
Speaker 1: on a on a project called BUDGEE. And no, I'm

65
00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:58,960
Speaker 1: not talking about the percussionist for Susie and the benches.

66
00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 1: I was thinking of a bird or or that either

67
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,880
Speaker 1: it actually was a way to display information on TVs.

68
00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:09,680
Speaker 1: UM and Uh He he, like many of the people

69
00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 1: we have talked about when we've talked about the tech pioneers,

70
00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: came up with this idea even before he UH finished school.

71
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,839
Speaker 1: And he dropped out of the University of Waterloo before

72
00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:24,160
Speaker 1: before finishing school, which makes him very similar to other

73
00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:28,680
Speaker 1: pioneers that we've talked about, Yes and so, UM and

74
00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,240
Speaker 1: so he basically decided to UH to give it a

75
00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:34,960
Speaker 1: go and and leave school, and UH came up with

76
00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:38,960
Speaker 1: a company named Paradigm Research, except that name was already

77
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,479
Speaker 1: taken UM and they were trying. He tried several different names,

78
00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:46,560
Speaker 1: ended up with UH. Inspired by the the phrase poetry

79
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:49,559
Speaker 1: and motion, decided to go with Research in Motion and

80
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:53,760
Speaker 1: the company was, as Jonathan pointed out, officially became incorporated

81
00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:58,640
Speaker 1: officially on March seventh night, four ye. He received a

82
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:02,520
Speaker 1: essentially a loan from the Canadian government to help this,

83
00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:06,400
Speaker 1: and he also had money invested by family and friends.

84
00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:09,920
Speaker 1: Uh He and a fellow student, fellow by the name

85
00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:14,080
Speaker 1: of Douglas Freegan founded this company together. Um Freagan became

86
00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:18,560
Speaker 1: the vice president of operations. Uh Lazaridis became the president

87
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:25,000
Speaker 1: and CEO UM and UH, interestingly enough, we're back just

88
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:28,279
Speaker 1: to jump ahead, just very quickly. A Lazaridis is still

89
00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:33,599
Speaker 1: a CEO of REM. It's RIM's got an interesting corporate

90
00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:36,800
Speaker 1: structure and that it has two CEOs. And we'll get

91
00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: into more about that in a few, um a few minutes.

92
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:45,240
Speaker 1: When we jump ahead in in RIM's history. Now after

93
00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:47,960
Speaker 1: the founding, what's the next piece of information you have?

94
00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:51,839
Speaker 1: Because I jump ahead quite a few years, well four years.

95
00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:56,520
Speaker 1: Well they the thing is, um, the Budgee didn't take

96
00:05:56,520 --> 00:06:01,280
Speaker 1: off at all, Um, but General Motors UH needed some

97
00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:06,039
Speaker 1: LED notification systems for their assembly lines. And uh you know,

98
00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:08,880
Speaker 1: as you might guess, General Motors, especially back in the

99
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:12,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, would have been a huge corporate client. UM.

100
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:16,120
Speaker 1: And that was his success, the CDs ON system. And

101
00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:19,159
Speaker 1: this was General Motors of Canada. Yeah, so it was

102
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:22,400
Speaker 1: the Canadian the Canadian branch of General Motors. There are

103
00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:24,520
Speaker 1: quite a few plants up there, or or were at

104
00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:27,320
Speaker 1: that point. They've closed to a couple I think, Um,

105
00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:28,839
Speaker 1: someone will right in and tell me that it's a

106
00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:32,440
Speaker 1: lot of them, I'm sure, but um and the National

107
00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,560
Speaker 1: Film Board of Canada did you know about this? Uh?

108
00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:40,080
Speaker 1: They needed a system for UH synchronizing film editing, and

109
00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 1: uh RIM built a system for them, and it actually

110
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,120
Speaker 1: won an Academy award. Is this the digits Sink? I

111
00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:50,320
Speaker 1: believe so the digits sink film key code reader that

112
00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,000
Speaker 1: was actually that took a few years to to be introduced,

113
00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,680
Speaker 1: that wasn't didn't really hit the market till nineteen nine.

114
00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:59,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, um M won both an Oscar and an

115
00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:03,440
Speaker 1: Emmy for this technology. Uh. And here's the interesting thing.

116
00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 1: You start hearing this where you know, here we are

117
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:09,600
Speaker 1: talking about UH film key code readers and and and

118
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:13,520
Speaker 1: displays and an industrial automation and you're thinking, wait a minute,

119
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:18,360
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like a smartphone at all. Well, you're right. Uh,

120
00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: the early days of REM, we're not focused specifically on

121
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,640
Speaker 1: bringing uh telecommunications devices to market that you know, it

122
00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:29,640
Speaker 1: was more of a kind of a general purpose research

123
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:35,000
Speaker 1: technology firm. And so you know these early days that

124
00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:37,440
Speaker 1: that kind of I don't know, you might want to

125
00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:39,120
Speaker 1: call it a lack of focus, or you may just

126
00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,440
Speaker 1: call it that they were being very versatile. Uh, they

127
00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:46,680
Speaker 1: were diversified, Yes, diversified good. Yes, they were taking a

128
00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:50,840
Speaker 1: proactive stance. Um. Yeah, it was interesting that they weren't

129
00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: really focused on telecommunications. Now now in so you know

130
00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:58,000
Speaker 1: ninety they've they've introduced the key code reader, but just

131
00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:01,280
Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier and RIM became the first

132
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:05,160
Speaker 1: wireless data technology developer in North America and the first

133
00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:11,480
Speaker 1: company outside of Scandinavia to create connectivity products for the

134
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: mobile texts UH network. Wireless network. Now, this was a

135
00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:21,040
Speaker 1: a wireless network. They used radio frequencies, used the packet

136
00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,000
Speaker 1: data switching method, which we've talked about before in this podcast.

137
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,680
Speaker 1: You know the way that you send data through packets,

138
00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:30,680
Speaker 1: but instead of it just being through a wire where

139
00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:34,160
Speaker 1: you know you would send us through uh pulses of electricity,

140
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:38,800
Speaker 1: this would be through radio frequencies. And um, so mobile

141
00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:42,120
Speaker 1: text is that was a data only actually is a

142
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:47,920
Speaker 1: data only wireless packet switching network. So it wasn't designed

143
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:52,040
Speaker 1: to carry voice communication. It was just data communication. And

144
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:57,880
Speaker 1: the earliest products that that RIM focused on weren't consumer products.

145
00:08:57,880 --> 00:09:01,880
Speaker 1: They were all retail product enterprise products with stuff for

146
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:07,920
Speaker 1: point of point of sales terminals UH to allow point

147
00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:13,480
Speaker 1: of sales terminals to send information wirelessly to some other machine.

148
00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:19,720
Speaker 1: So again not not like something that you would immediately say, wow,

149
00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:22,880
Speaker 1: that's that's really awesome, I can't wait to get my

150
00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:25,040
Speaker 1: hands on it, because it just wasn't meant for the

151
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:28,400
Speaker 1: general consumer. Yeah. Well, of course, the business to business

152
00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:32,880
Speaker 1: market is uh can be very very lucrative. Um. And

153
00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:35,240
Speaker 1: at the point, you know, we're talking about the late

154
00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:39,240
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, early nineteen nineties, Uh, not everyone had a

155
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,439
Speaker 1: cell phone. I mean they were they you know, these

156
00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:44,440
Speaker 1: mobile products, and a lot of people had pagers uh

157
00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,480
Speaker 1: in the early nineties and um, of course in in

158
00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,920
Speaker 1: the early nineties, that's that's sort of what RIM got into.

159
00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:54,920
Speaker 1: They started looking at the possibilities of two way wireless communications. Yeah,

160
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:56,760
Speaker 1: that was one of the things they started to really

161
00:09:56,800 --> 00:09:59,840
Speaker 1: research once they got involved in the mobile text network.

162
00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:05,280
Speaker 1: Now in in nineteen uh so in the introduced the

163
00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:09,199
Speaker 1: Mobile Text Protocol converter, which was the device that allowed

164
00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:11,559
Speaker 1: them to create these products that would allow them to

165
00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:15,680
Speaker 1: to tag on a converter box onto a an existing

166
00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:19,240
Speaker 1: point of sales terminal. So it's kind of like an

167
00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:23,000
Speaker 1: adapter that you could plug into your system and use

168
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:27,360
Speaker 1: the equipment you already have um to have this wireless

169
00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:30,840
Speaker 1: connectivity of again just an enterprise sort of thing, a

170
00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:33,600
Speaker 1: retail sort of thing, not a not a consumer thing. Yeah.

171
00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:36,800
Speaker 1: Point of sale is is like at the cash register itself, yes,

172
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:40,600
Speaker 1: where you're actually going to buy something. And then in

173
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:45,720
Speaker 1: nine another person joins Rim and this is someone who

174
00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:50,320
Speaker 1: will become very important. It's a Jim Basilei and so.

175
00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:56,360
Speaker 1: And at this point, the the CEO role is divided

176
00:10:56,440 --> 00:11:01,640
Speaker 1: in twain. Lazarides is in charge of things like product

177
00:11:01,679 --> 00:11:06,000
Speaker 1: development and research, and Bassili was sort of the the

178
00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:12,400
Speaker 1: the financial guy and the business development guy because those

179
00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:16,360
Speaker 1: two parts of the CEO role, you know, just didn't

180
00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:20,199
Speaker 1: didn't really the Lazards wasn't comfortable filling both of those

181
00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:22,000
Speaker 1: parts of the role. He didn't think that he had

182
00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:26,679
Speaker 1: the financial acumen to be able to do this effectively.

183
00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:29,079
Speaker 1: He thought that there'd be a better way of leading

184
00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:31,200
Speaker 1: this company. And so that was Bassili's role when he

185
00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:33,280
Speaker 1: came on. And the two are still co C e

186
00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:38,199
Speaker 1: O s And that has actually led to some criticism

187
00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:42,880
Speaker 1: of Rimum throughout its history, but really that criticism has

188
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:46,800
Speaker 1: wrapped up quite a bit in and we'll we'll talk

189
00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 1: about that when we get a little further in. Yes,

190
00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:53,480
Speaker 1: Mr Bassili actually put a quarter of a million dollars

191
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:56,320
Speaker 1: of his own money UH into RIM at that point,

192
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 1: so that was a pretty substantial investment. Wouldn't be the

193
00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:03,280
Speaker 1: first time he would have to pay. But we'll get

194
00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:08,240
Speaker 1: into that too. That that's a there was. Rims also

195
00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,560
Speaker 1: had a history of some pretty nasty legal battles, but

196
00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:16,160
Speaker 1: that's that's in the late nineties and further on. Yeah,

197
00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, a couple of the timelines

198
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 1: that I looked at, we're almost all about the legal battles. Yeah, No,

199
00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:25,320
Speaker 1: there's a there's a stretch in the two thousand era

200
00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:27,880
Speaker 1: where that's you know, there was no focus on the

201
00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:30,720
Speaker 1: actual products, at least in the research I looked at

202
00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:35,280
Speaker 1: as well. So in UH in ninety four we've got

203
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,960
Speaker 1: RIM offering its own point of sales terminal. So now

204
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:43,200
Speaker 1: now the technology has been incorporated directly into UH into

205
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,959
Speaker 1: terminals so that people can companies can buy them directly

206
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:49,640
Speaker 1: from RIM and they don't have to try and incorporate

207
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:54,720
Speaker 1: one technology with another. UH. And then in nine RIM

208
00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:58,960
Speaker 1: introduces the Freedom, which is a PC m C I

209
00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:03,280
Speaker 1: a radio them for computers. PC m c I A

210
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:07,760
Speaker 1: stands for Personal Computer Memory Card. International Association has several

211
00:13:07,760 --> 00:13:10,680
Speaker 1: different types of cards, some of which are used to

212
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:13,960
Speaker 1: add memory to a computer, but the type two PC

213
00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:18,480
Speaker 1: m c I A card is meant as a modem card, right,

214
00:13:18,559 --> 00:13:22,960
Speaker 1: so it's basically a a card that you plug into

215
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:27,959
Speaker 1: the insides of your computer. Yeah. Uh, mainly laptops. Actually,

216
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,400
Speaker 1: a lot of laptops had expansion ports that you could

217
00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:33,640
Speaker 1: you could plug a card into that one expansion port

218
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:36,280
Speaker 1: and it would allow you to do whatever, you know,

219
00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:38,480
Speaker 1: increase the memory. And in this case, what it was

220
00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:40,760
Speaker 1: doing is it was giving you a radio modem so

221
00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:43,640
Speaker 1: that you can have wireless connectivity with your laptop, which

222
00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:46,400
Speaker 1: was you know, that was a pretty new thing in

223
00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:50,920
Speaker 1: there weren't a whole lot of solutions out there, and

224
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:52,839
Speaker 1: so RIM was kind of getting into that. And in

225
00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:58,600
Speaker 1: nineties six RIM introduced the interactive pager, which is probably

226
00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:02,439
Speaker 1: the most one of the most irritating lee spelled products

227
00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:04,640
Speaker 1: of all time. Why because it has an AT sign

228
00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:08,640
Speaker 1: for the that instead of a so that that irritates me.

229
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,040
Speaker 1: Well it um. It was sort of a revolutionary product.

230
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 1: It's time though, because most pagers, uh, you know we're

231
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,880
Speaker 1: one way. Yeah. It meant that if you had a pager,

232
00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:21,320
Speaker 1: you could receive messages on it, and that's all you

233
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 1: could do. You could you could read through all those messages.

234
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,400
Speaker 1: But if someone sent you a page, you know, you

235
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:28,920
Speaker 1: would look down you see, oh, I've got a message

236
00:14:28,920 --> 00:14:31,120
Speaker 1: from so and so. You put the pager down, you

237
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:33,720
Speaker 1: pick up a phone, you call that person and you know,

238
00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:37,560
Speaker 1: have a discussion and rim. Because of its research in

239
00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:41,480
Speaker 1: two way communication on the Mobo Tex network had come

240
00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,440
Speaker 1: up with a way of creating a two way messaging service,

241
00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:47,840
Speaker 1: and the Interactive pager would let you do this. You

242
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,640
Speaker 1: would have a it had a quarty keyboard, and it

243
00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:52,520
Speaker 1: had a little bit a screen that could show up

244
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:55,240
Speaker 1: to four lines of text and you could get a

245
00:14:55,240 --> 00:14:57,320
Speaker 1: message from someone and you could send a message back.

246
00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:01,360
Speaker 1: So essentially your text messaging. That's that's what this technology

247
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: allowed you to do, which was new. This was not

248
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:07,320
Speaker 1: something that was generally seen around this time. So suddenly

249
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:09,480
Speaker 1: you could get a pager that would allow you to

250
00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:13,000
Speaker 1: do more communication where you wouldn't necessarily have to go

251
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:15,840
Speaker 1: and find a phone or or carry, you know, a

252
00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:18,720
Speaker 1: cell phone. Along with the pager, you could actually communicate

253
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 1: with people, assuming that they had a device that, you know,

254
00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,960
Speaker 1: a pager, that they could use to read the message

255
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,680
Speaker 1: you're sending them. Otherwise it's still whole one way um,

256
00:15:27,720 --> 00:15:29,360
Speaker 1: and it do you know how much it costs? No,

257
00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:32,120
Speaker 1: Actually I don't know that, Okay, So it's a two

258
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:34,440
Speaker 1: way pager. It also had all the functions of a

259
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:36,400
Speaker 1: one way pager, so it's not like it's you know,

260
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,440
Speaker 1: limited to that, but a two way pager text only

261
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:47,000
Speaker 1: four lines of text per screen SIV. And that's not

262
00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 1: including the service fee. That's that's the price of the

263
00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:53,760
Speaker 1: product itself. So if you think about that, a six

264
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:57,320
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five dollar two way pager, that's you know,

265
00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:01,080
Speaker 1: that's that's a chunk of change, especially when you can

266
00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:04,280
Speaker 1: go out and buy a fully featured smartphone without a

267
00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:08,680
Speaker 1: contract for around that same amount. I mean, that's pretty impressive.

268
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,600
Speaker 1: It's a different world we live in now. Yeah. Yeah,

269
00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,120
Speaker 1: and from I've never actually seen one of these in person.

270
00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:18,320
Speaker 1: I've seen photos online, but from what I've read, it

271
00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:22,200
Speaker 1: was also a very large device, yeah, compared to especially

272
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:25,880
Speaker 1: compared to today's technology. It was it was sometimes called

273
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:30,200
Speaker 1: the RIM nine hundred because that's how many pounds it weighed? No, no,

274
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:32,280
Speaker 1: it was. But but it had a flip top, you know,

275
00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:34,800
Speaker 1: you would talk, you would lift the lid up and

276
00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: that had the screen on it. Then you had the

277
00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:39,360
Speaker 1: full Quarty keyboard beneath you folded it down. It was

278
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:41,920
Speaker 1: like a brick and uh yeah it was. It was big,

279
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:46,360
Speaker 1: um and but it kind of paved the way for

280
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:49,600
Speaker 1: RIM's future. Chris Poulette and I have a lot more

281
00:16:49,640 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 1: to say about RIM, but let's take a quick break

282
00:16:53,000 --> 00:17:03,600
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. So in ven this is the

283
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 1: year after they've introduced the interactive pager, RIM becomes a

284
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,240
Speaker 1: publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Right, that

285
00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:12,760
Speaker 1: helped him raise quite a bit of money, about well

286
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:16,240
Speaker 1: more than a hundred and fifteen million dollars um. Which

287
00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:19,920
Speaker 1: when you're a company that's that's getting its foothold, that

288
00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,360
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money. Yeah, that's that's a ton. Yeah. Yeah.

289
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:26,359
Speaker 1: And so RIM joins other Toronto Stock Exchange staples like

290
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:31,679
Speaker 1: Poutine and then in what Canadians Are Too Nice to

291
00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:37,080
Speaker 1: be mean to Me? I Love Poutine. In ninety eight,

292
00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:43,240
Speaker 1: Rim introduces the nine fifty wireless handheld device. Now this

293
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:47,000
Speaker 1: one is a much smaller to a pager. This is

294
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:48,880
Speaker 1: the one that a lot of people remember when they

295
00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:51,040
Speaker 1: think back to the old rim pagers. This is this

296
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:54,120
Speaker 1: is the form factor that was really familiar to them. Um.

297
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:58,520
Speaker 1: And it also introduced uh they licensed to technology from

298
00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:04,320
Speaker 1: Puma Technology, the Intelisinc synchronization platform which actually allowed for

299
00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:08,399
Speaker 1: sinking with the device, and before that it didn't have

300
00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:13,399
Speaker 1: that capability. So now this two way pager has sinking capability,

301
00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:15,600
Speaker 1: so you can sink it with another device, and it

302
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 1: also could run applications written in CE language. Um oh,

303
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:24,320
Speaker 1: and I guess we can take just a brief moment

304
00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,160
Speaker 1: and and acknowledge the fact that the week we're recording

305
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,639
Speaker 1: this is sadly the same week we learned of the

306
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:34,440
Speaker 1: passing of the man who wrote the C programming language.

307
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:38,879
Speaker 1: So uh so rest in peace, Mr Ritchie. So they

308
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 1: the the RAM nine fifty wireless handheld can run C

309
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:47,280
Speaker 1: language programs. Actually read about a guy who used to

310
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:53,919
Speaker 1: have a UH version of Super Mario on this little pager.

311
00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 1: Really yeah, he had a C programming language version of

312
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:00,760
Speaker 1: Super Mario that he would play on the pager. I

313
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:03,720
Speaker 1: can't imagine that would be terribly satisfying, but it wasn't interesting.

314
00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:07,160
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and imagine so um and so this one

315
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 1: again was smaller than the nine hundred that we talked

316
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: about a little bit ago, and it still had the

317
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:15,760
Speaker 1: quirty keyboard in the little screen right. Um. Yeah. At

318
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:20,000
Speaker 1: this point, RIM has become one of Canada's fastest growing

319
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:23,919
Speaker 1: tech companies. Um, you know. And it's actually it's it's

320
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 1: funny because, um, from what I understand, the campus is

321
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:29,640
Speaker 1: right there at the University of Waterloo, right next door.

322
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:34,000
Speaker 1: Essentially um sipening off engineering students as fast as possible

323
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,920
Speaker 1: probably um. But some people have started calling this part

324
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,840
Speaker 1: of you know, the Kitchener Waterloo area as a silicon

325
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:45,240
Speaker 1: valley north. Um. I don't know that there's much of

326
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:48,560
Speaker 1: a valley, but you know, I guess it's just the

327
00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:52,159
Speaker 1: the slang for the term. But yeah, ninety nine is

328
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:56,560
Speaker 1: when they Rim became listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange,

329
00:19:56,760 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 1: which helped the company get another two fifty million dollars UM.

330
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:05,320
Speaker 1: And this is the point at which the devices, the

331
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:08,080
Speaker 1: little buttons on the outside of the devices, are beginning

332
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:12,120
Speaker 1: to remind some people of of seeds on the outside

333
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:17,280
Speaker 1: of fruit, which is how apparently the BlackBerry got its name.

334
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 1: Although when BlackBerry was first announced, it was just a

335
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 1: wireless email solution. It wasn't specifically UH attributed to a

336
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:30,840
Speaker 1: particular product, So in other words, you didn't call your

337
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:35,119
Speaker 1: phone a BlackBerry at this point. Yet the BlackBerry referred

338
00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:39,280
Speaker 1: to the technology that allowed to access email. And this

339
00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:43,520
Speaker 1: is where black BlackBerry introduces the Enterprise server software for

340
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,360
Speaker 1: Microsoft Exchange. So now we've got the devices that will

341
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,359
Speaker 1: allow you to access your corporate email or your Microsoft

342
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,719
Speaker 1: Exchange email if it's not necessarily corporate, it's just that

343
00:20:54,760 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: was the most common. But it would allow you to

344
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 1: check email on devices. It still didn't have a phone,

345
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:04,760
Speaker 1: so this is more like a personal digital assistant. But

346
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 1: they introduced the RIM eight fifty wireless handheld and which

347
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,439
Speaker 1: looked a lot like the nine fifty, except now the

348
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: eight fifty runs on the data attack wireless network, the

349
00:21:17,359 --> 00:21:20,320
Speaker 1: nine fifties on the mobile text wireless network. So these

350
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,600
Speaker 1: are two different wireless technologies, and that might sound strange

351
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 1: to you, except that we still see that kind of

352
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:27,879
Speaker 1: stuff today. I mean we see it in multiple UH

353
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,200
Speaker 1: areas because we've got C d M a versus G

354
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 1: s M. Those are two different wireless technologies. You've got

355
00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 1: things like y max and LTE. Those are two different

356
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,639
Speaker 1: wireless technology. So uh. In other words, BlackBerry was trying

357
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:43,360
Speaker 1: to broaden its market by creating devices that could work

358
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: on other wireless networks so that they could reach more consumers.

359
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: And uh, the A fifty is um as as far

360
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 1: as I can tell, the eight fifty is the device

361
00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:00,400
Speaker 1: that really started the ball rolling in a way, and

362
00:22:00,640 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: it's the it's the device that got uh people to

363
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 1: really sit up and take notice, and people wanted to

364
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 1: buy it. Um right, you know this is this is

365
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,679
Speaker 1: an arrow in a lot. Not everyone still not everyone

366
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:16,119
Speaker 1: had personal email, the corporate email. Well that was very

367
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 1: useful and people it was really starting to take off,

368
00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:21,639
Speaker 1: and it was it's important. Now all of a sudden,

369
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,360
Speaker 1: you're able to keep up with things that are going

370
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: on in the office, um conveniently while you are out

371
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,880
Speaker 1: and about, while you're at lunch, um, while you're at home.

372
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 1: You don't have to find a computer to log in anymore.

373
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: You can just check it. And it's easy to do,

374
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 1: so easy in fact, that people kind of want to

375
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: do it, which is why you couldn't get people to

376
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: leave them alone. It's also why we call them crackberries. Uh.

377
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 1: Now after the addictive drug. In two thousand, the RAM

378
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: introduced the eight, fifty seven and the seven wireless handheld devices.

379
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: This is these are the ones that really looked like

380
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:00,880
Speaker 1: p D as you know, they had the monochrome screening. Uh,

381
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 1: they had a larger so the screens larger, the quarty

382
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 1: keyboards spread out there. That these are the devices that

383
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: look a little more squar ish or even rectangular, where

384
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 1: you've got a lot more real estate for the screens

385
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 1: and in uh in two thousand one, uh, that's where

386
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: we start getting into some legal issues. So two thousand one,

387
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:27,959
Speaker 1: a group of investors file a lawsuit in a US

388
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: federal court and they they accuse rim of using of

389
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: infringing on patents held by a patent company called n

390
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 1: t P. Now you may have heard our Yeah, if

391
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,160
Speaker 1: you heard our our Patent Wars podcast, we talked about

392
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: there were there are companies out there that really what

393
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: they do is they acquire patents and then they either

394
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 1: license those patents out to other companies that want to

395
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 1: use the technology, or they sit on the patents and

396
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: wait for someone to infringe on them and then sue

397
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 1: the dickens out of them. Yeah, that's the problem with

398
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 1: getting people to sit up and take notice of you.

399
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: That also means that people sit up and take notice

400
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:14,439
Speaker 1: of you. NTP noticed. Um. Also in two thousand, just

401
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: as a note, the company raised another nine fifty million

402
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: dollars by offering more shares of stock. They were, um

403
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean at this point, RIM is a

404
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 1: well established company two thousand, which is what sixteen years

405
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: or so after it's founding incorporate well formal uh incorporation corporations.

406
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, I mean at this point they're they're

407
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: a well known tech company. They're they're really making a

408
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: mark in the world. And NTP sits up and goes

409
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 1: ah harcus. So two thousand two is a huge year

410
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 1: for for RIM. And they released the BlackBerry five eight

411
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: one zero, which is the first hand held device that

412
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: actually is called a BlackBerry. Uh. The other ones had

413
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 1: the BlackBerry technology in them, but you didn't necessarily call

414
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: it a BlackBerry, although a lot of people used as

415
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,920
Speaker 1: as kind of the short form version of the name,

416
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 1: like when you talk about a Windows based computer and

417
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: you call it anc. Yeah. So the BlackBerry five eight

418
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: one zero first, the first true BlackBerry. It was also

419
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: a smartphone, although it required a separate headset to use

420
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: as a phone, and it worked on the GSM network

421
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: had a monochrome screen. And then later that year M

422
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: released the six seven one zero and six seven two

423
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: zero phones, which had integrated phones directly into the hand

424
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: set itself, so you didn't have to have a separate

425
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: headset to use the phone. They also released the six

426
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: five one zero. So this is the other thing about BlackBerry.

427
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 1: They have really catching names for their devices. Six zero

428
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: was the next Tell device, so it not only had

429
00:25:55,320 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: the the the BlackBerry email service and all of that

430
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: fun stuff, it also had a walkie talkie feature over

431
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: breaker breaker uh. And then later on they introduced another

432
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: one of the next cells. Uh. Actually a couple of

433
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: years later, but they introduced a next cell phone that

434
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: was the first BlackBerry to hold have a GPS receiver

435
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: in it. Um, they introduced the first c d M

436
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 1: a BlackBerry, which was the six seven five zero. You're

437
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: never gonna keep all these straight. We should write a

438
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: quiz for this and all they are the numbers, and

439
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,640
Speaker 1: I would just be evil, all right. So then um

440
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: they also introduced a mobile data service which was an

441
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: environment for apps that could access corporate data. Now, RIM

442
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: has never really gotten wholeheartedly into the whole apps game. Uh,

443
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: they a little bit, but not like other companies like

444
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,239
Speaker 1: Apple and Google. So in fact that that kind of

445
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: plays into why they are in the situation they're in

446
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: right now. Um. They also introduced what would later become

447
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: known as the BlackBerry Internet Service, which was what allowed

448
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: people to access email clients that were web based as

449
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,719
Speaker 1: opposed to the Microsoft Exchange stuff. So they could suddenly

450
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: and they can now access not just their corporate email,

451
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,199
Speaker 1: but if they had a web based personal email address,

452
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: they could access that as well. And in two thousand two,

453
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 1: a jury finds in favor of nt P in their

454
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: their lawsuit about patent infringement and orders RIM to pay

455
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: twenty three point one million dollars. And boy does that

456
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: get more complicated? Yeah, just if just a few months later,

457
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: that was in November, and in in August or two

458
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: thousand three, a judge said that the BlackBerry could not

459
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: be sold in the United States. Yea, um, but RIM

460
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 1: appealed that decision and yeah, so basically they were allowed

461
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: to pending the result of the appeal. And this was

462
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: important for him because that same year they were the

463
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: company started releasing devices that were aimed more for well,

464
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: we call them pro sumers, right, pro sumer it's kind

465
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: of the early adopters. We've talked about them before in

466
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: the podcast. But they're not not your average consumer because

467
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: the BlackBerry was you know, it's kind of a luxury

468
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: product for anyone who is just interested in a smartphone

469
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: and is not going to get you know, reimbursed by

470
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: their company. But yeah, this was aimed at professionals who

471
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: were interested in smartphones, but they weren't directly tied to

472
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: whatever it is they did for a living, so they

473
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: wanted it as a personal device. Um. So, of course,

474
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: rims very much interested in keeping their their products up

475
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: and running, especially in the United States because that's where

476
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: one of the big markets. That's that's the location of

477
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: a large market. I mean, you know, you've got other

478
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: markets for smartphones, but a lot of those are already

479
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: tied up by phones coming out of Japan. So going

480
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: to two thousand four, uh, here's something interesting. So by

481
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: now they're starting to release Uh. In two thousand three,

482
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: they also started releasing Blackberries that had color screens because

483
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: up to that point, they were all monochrome. But in

484
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: two thousand four, they releases the BlackBerry five seven nine zero,

485
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: which has a monochrome display and no phone. And why

486
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: would they do that because people on the Mobile Tex

487
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: network really wanted to have all these cool features and

488
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: they didn't have a device that would run on Mobile

489
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,719
Speaker 1: Tex network. So the five seven nine zero was the

490
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: first BlackBerry device to run on Mobile Tex. But it

491
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: couldn't have a phone because it was data only and

492
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: they didn't have a void solution. So uh, there there

493
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: you go. Monochrome display. It was like it was like

494
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: a device that looked like it came out two years previously,

495
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: you know, compared to the stuff that had come out

496
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: in two thousand three. Well, two thousand four was important

497
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: for another reason too. That was when, uh, when BlackBerry

498
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: had more than one million subscribers around the world. Um.

499
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: And in two thousand four late uh that an Appeals

500
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 1: Corps had decided that most of the claims that that

501
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: NTP had brought were were still valid um and news

502
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: for m but they also asked the court asked the

503
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: the lower court um that it made the decision to

504
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 1: look at the case again. So they had to reopen that,

505
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: and I said that the the original ruling had some

506
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: problems with it, that that the the actual allegations still

507
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: held true, but the ruling itself had problems, so it

508
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: needed to go back into the court system. So then

509
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: get to two thousand and five. Now RIM has over

510
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: five million subscribers, which is enormous growth. Yeah, but it's

511
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: the point at which the RIM is getting to the

512
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: point where I think they're getting a little weary of

513
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: this lawsuit thing. Yeah, so they get so they agreed

514
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: to a settlement. Yeah, a crazy settlement because remember it

515
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: was originally they were gonna have to pay twenty three

516
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: point one million dollars. Now it's four dred and fifty

517
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: million dollars to settle the lawsuit. Yeah, but NTP does

518
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: not seem to um happy to just take that. They

519
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: now in TPS thinking hey, we got a real shot

520
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: of of we smell blood. Yeah, we can we can

521
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: really really uh twist the knife here. And so a

522
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: judge gets kind of fed up with what's going on

523
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: with the the failure to create a deal, and the

524
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: case is sent back to federal court. And uh, and

525
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: so you've got the case going back to federal Court. Uh,

526
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: the RIM appeals to the U. S. Supreme Court. The

527
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: Supreme Court says, no, this needs to go back to

528
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 1: federal court. Um judge refuses to force in TP to

529
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: actually agree to the four D fifty million dollar settlements.

530
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: So now in t P has a real chance of

531
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: getting even more right. Right. As a matter of fact,

532
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 1: in December of two thousand five, they said that they

533
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: would be willing to settle as long as they got

534
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: a five excuse me, a five point seven percent royalty

535
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: for the life of the patents. Yeah, so now that

536
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: would be lucrative. Yeah. This is like in an actor

537
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: landing a deal to gets part of the merchandising rights

538
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: for anything that comes out of the movie that actors in.

539
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: You know, that's where the real money is. Yeah, I mean,

540
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: ticket sales are one thing, but you're going to really

541
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: make it up with those T shirts and action figures.

542
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: And I'm just appealing to my geek friends now. But

543
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: also that same year two thousand five, just to get

544
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of positive news out there, Real introduced

545
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: the BlackBerry, which had the first true color screen and

546
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: also introduced themes to the BlackBerry handset. So now that

547
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: that became like the flagship product for for that year. Yeah,

548
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: if you've been using a BlackBerry for a long time,

549
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: you might remember the the Brujaja that had come up

550
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: where they were saying in the news that it was

551
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: possible that BlackBerry would have to stop offering service in

552
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: the United States. And that's what we're talking about right now,

553
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: because at this point there uh NTP is basically saying, hey, look,

554
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: well we'll allow thirty days before cut off, and government

555
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: users don't necessarily have to have their service cut off

556
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: right because black we can't settle they're gonna have to stop.

557
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: Blackberries became really really important for government officials, for military

558
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: and for first responders because it provided a fast and

559
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: secure way to communicate. So, uh, you know that it

560
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: could have had catastrophic results if all service had been

561
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: cut off. Can you imagine, I mean, you could fire

562
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: departments not being able to communicate as as easily as

563
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: they had been. It would be a massive blow. And

564
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: there's some things that you know, you just gotta say, Okay, well,

565
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: look we're going to allow these services to continue even

566
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: if we can't come to an agreement, because otherwise it

567
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: would be catastrophic. So uh, at the same time, Bassili

568
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: was saying that they that the company was looking at

569
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: ways to create alternatives to the technology it was in

570
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: question so that they could continue offering service even if

571
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: the the the questionable technology was shut down. So this

572
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: is kind of a work around they're looking at. Hey, guys,

573
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: we're gonna get right back to the story of RIM,

574
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: but I gotta answer this message on my BlackBerry phone

575
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: that I'm imaginarily pointing at. So let's take a quick

576
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: break and thank our sponsor. Now, we then get into

577
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: a point where RIM agrees to pay in TP a

578
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: settlement of six hundred and twelve and a half million dollars.

579
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: And um, that's the settlement and for a quote perpetual

580
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: paid up license going forward end quote. Yeah, and uh

581
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: it's pretty huge here. But um, you know, we're still

582
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: at this point that this it has not actually been settled,

583
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's really getting ugly and and people

584
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: who are like the stakeholders in the company are nervous

585
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: because you don't know if the service is going to

586
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: be cut off or not. So RIM is actually really

587
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 1: suffering at this point. Well, they've they continue this, uh,

588
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: this court case, which at this point was actually more

589
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: interesting too to the technology world then the actual products

590
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,840
Speaker 1: that Blackberries putting out. UM. It also was starting to

591
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: drive business over to Palm. You know, as people were saying,

592
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: I don't know if this BlackBerry is going to be

593
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: working in six months, I need to go get a

594
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: device that I know I can depend on. And so

595
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: Trio sales actually really took off at this point. UM.

596
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: But eventually the the whole mess with NTP gets settled

597
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:59,879
Speaker 1: and and UH as a result, the shares actually get

598
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: a boost and UH and things start to look better

599
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: for REM. Although in two thousand seven, RIM had to

600
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: pay two million dollars to UM to the United States

601
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 1: because of some problems with their stock options. UH. They

602
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: were issuing stock options that less than fair market value

603
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: to some of their executives, and so Lazarides and Basili

604
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: had to pay around five million dollars apiece to cover

605
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 1: the cost of the accounting review that was ordered by

606
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: the United States government, and UM lots of lots of

607
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: executives had to pay back some some money because the

608
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: stock options they have been granted were granted at the

609
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:46,919
Speaker 1: wrong price. So again kind of a black mark on RIM.

610
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,240
Speaker 1: Well at this point, now that the lawsuit is settled. UH,

611
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: they're able to focus on on business again in a

612
00:36:55,640 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 1: more unified way. They're not their attention is not divided anymore. UM.

613
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: In late two thousand seven, UH, there were more than

614
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: ten million BlackBerry subscribers. UM. You'll remember in two thousand

615
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: seven to other products were announced that would eventually cause

616
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: great problems for RIM. That that would be the iPhone

617
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: and the Google Android operating system. UM. But in the meaning,

618
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: but keeping in mind that Blackberries still established as the business,

619
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: the the the corporate UM solution for messaging and for

620
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: for for you know, smartphones. UH. You know, the Trio

621
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: was was still pretty far behind UM. And it was

622
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: also still very much a an enterprise product. It wasn't

623
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: a consumer thing. UM. Alcatel Lucented had an agreement to

624
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: distribute Blackberries in China, which you know is a huge

625
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: market UM. And as a matter of fact, that that

626
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: the stock boost from that actually made RIM the most

627
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: valuable company in Canada based on market capitalization. UM. Then

628
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, again they released the BlackBerry Professional

629
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: Software UM, which allowed companies with their own email server

630
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: UM in house to UH to transmit to Blackberries UM,

631
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: enabling people who work in I t for many companies

632
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: to get messages at two in the morning going the

633
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: servers down. UM. It thrilled them to no end. I

634
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: am sure I've been around people for whom that is

635
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: a oh I gotta go. UM and uh They actually

636
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: had their first BlackBerry store in Farmington Hills, Michigan, UM

637
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: along with the cell phone company Wireless Giant UM, so

638
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: that that was sort of a unique thing for the

639
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: time to UM. They added more subscribers again, one point

640
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:52,840
Speaker 1: six five million by the end the very end of

641
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,280
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, pushing him up to twelve million. UM

642
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 1: and uh rim started its own copyright UM not copy

643
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:04,720
Speaker 1: right its own patent case the year after UH telling

644
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 1: saying that Motorola had and fringed on some of its patents. UM. So,

645
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: you know, Motorola sued them back, of course, as is

646
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: typically the case in these situations, saying that some of

647
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: the their u S patents that they owned that BlackBerry

648
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:25,200
Speaker 1: was infringing on. And then they started not naming their

649
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: stuff with boring old names. This is when the you

650
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 1: could tell that the influence of the consumer smartphone was

651
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: having an effect on BlackBerry when they came out with

652
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: the Bold in two thousand and eight. I remember the Bold,

653
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: the Curve, the pearl um. All of these devices were

654
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: aimed at various slices of the consumer market with an

655
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: attempt to try and gain traction there. Although, BlackBerry got

656
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism from technology journalists and analysts, saying

657
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: that while they were redesigning the hardware and trying to

658
00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:02,320
Speaker 1: make that more uh the more attractive to the average consumer,

659
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: they hadn't done a lot of work with the operating system,

660
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: and the operating system had remained pretty much the same

661
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,720
Speaker 1: over the last several years, and that as a result,

662
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: it was starting to look stale, particularly against things like

663
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: the iPhone or Google Android. And another part is, again

664
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: i mentioned earlier, BlackBerry just didn't support apps to the

665
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: same extent as Android or the iPhone. And you think,

666
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: you know, apps really extend the functionality of these devices.

667
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 1: You know, you can suddenly do all these amazing things

668
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: on the device. Sometimes it's games, sometimes it's a service

669
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: that will let you, um uh, navigate the world more easily,

670
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: or to navigate shopping more easily. BlackBerry didn't really have

671
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: that to the extent that iPhone and Google did, and

672
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: as a result, if you're a consumer, you know you're

673
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 1: not just looking at most consumers I guess are not

674
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:57,760
Speaker 1: just looking at the form factor, although that definitely plays

675
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: a role in your choice, but just why can you

676
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: do with it? And really BlackBerry was falling behind and

677
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 1: so UM some people said that might have been what

678
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: led BlackBerry to introduce the Playbook, which was Blackberries or

679
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: Rims tablet device seven inch tablet and uh, it was

680
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: a very snazzy tablet of the operating system was very smooth.

681
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 1: It was not the standard BlackBerry operating system. They had

682
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: gone to another company to outsource that and UH, and

683
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: it would support apps. UH. The interesting some interesting things

684
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: about the the playbook and we've done a whole podcast

685
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 1: about the playbook, so you can listen to that as well.

686
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: But some of the interesting points about it or that

687
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: you could not access contacts and email and then that

688
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 1: sort of information with the playbook on its own. You

689
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: had to pair it with a BlackBerry smartphone. And the

690
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,720
Speaker 1: idea here was that if someone were to get hold

691
00:41:56,760 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: of your tablet, they wouldn't be able to access your

692
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: corporate information because it was not stored on the device itself.

693
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: It could only be accessed when paired with a smartphone. Yeah,

694
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: of course, UH. In a lot of enterprise UH situations,

695
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: there's a lot of proprietary data that needs to be

696
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 1: protected business plans and UH you know Apple is We've

697
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: talked about how secret Apple is. There far from the

698
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: only UH company in all forms of business that wants

699
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: to keep its trade secrets private. Um. That's that's one

700
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: of the big reasons why UH I T professionals are

701
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: still very big on blackberriers, that they they have very

702
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: strong security versus UH people. That was one of the

703
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: big arguments. They said, well, why don't why don't more

704
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:45,840
Speaker 1: people switch to the iPhone If people like the iPhone,

705
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: they said, well, the iPhone is not as capable. Keeping

706
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: in mind this is you know, some time ago and

707
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 1: things have changed somewhat, but you know, that was the

708
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: big argument right away, was well, you know, the iPhone

709
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 1: may be nice, but it doesn't have the same kind

710
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: of security that a BlackBerry does. A lot of the

711
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: transmissions on a BlackBerry are encrypted. Yeah, and they're passing

712
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: through Blackberries servers yes, um, which is, by the way,

713
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: are most of which are located in Canada. Which that

714
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: was part of the problem when when Barack Obama wanted

715
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: to see if he could keep his BlackBerry once he

716
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: became president of the United States. That was one of

717
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 1: the issues that was brought up was the fact that

718
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: this this data would be passing through servers in another country.

719
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: And we all know that Canada is poised to strike

720
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: at the United States at a moment's notice, So they

721
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: wanted to be sure that the president's information would remain

722
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: private and and untouched by anyone in Canada who had

723
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 1: designs on the presidency of the United States of America. Well,

724
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,440
Speaker 1: it might be exaggerating a little, but there was there

725
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: was an issue well, and and the thing is too

726
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: that it was passing out of the government's hands and

727
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 1: into the hands of a private company to as well.

728
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: That's that's another issue. Even if even if rem we're

729
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 1: located in the United States, there would be some serious

730
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,320
Speaker 1: questions about that kind of thing. But the BlackBerry remains

731
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: a company to which many people are extremely loyal. UM.

732
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 1: They have made good products with a good reputation for

733
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: many years, and the UH the enterprise security layer is

734
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: also something that gives people in business a lot of

735
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: confidence in the product. Unfortunately, UM, at the time we

736
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: are recording this. BlackBerry has been fending off a pr

737
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: um onslaught that they've had to deal with because the

738
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: servers and apparently there was a machine that went down

739
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom one of their course switches. Now,

740
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: a course switch is a device that helps route traffic.

741
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: It takes incoming traffic and sends it to the next

742
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: major hop along the line. But if you're talking about

743
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,319
Speaker 1: a course switch, that's something that's located on the backbone

744
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: of a system. So that's a major major point of failure.

745
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: And like many companies, RIM has entrusted its equipment to

746
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: a redundant backup system. Also in this case which failed UM,

747
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 1: so the company throttled its network traffic all around the world.

748
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 1: And so for the past few days, before the day

749
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: we were recording this um in in mid October of

750
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, BlackBerry has been suffering from people being

751
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 1: very upset about it, the traffic disruptions and um As

752
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: a result, a lot of people have been questioning whether,

753
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: as BlackBerry has been behind UH the Android and iOS

754
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 1: operating systems for the past couple of years in terms

755
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: of subscriber growth, whether BlackBerry will continue as a viable

756
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,879
Speaker 1: option for for enterprises, because both Apple and Google see

757
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: opportunities in the enterprise market. Yeah, this was This was

758
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: particularly bad timing for this to happen for to RIM

759
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: because you've got You've got them in a precarious position there.

760
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 1: Their sales have have had some problems over the last

761
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: few quarters. They've had revenue problems over the last few quarters.

762
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: The company looked like a company that's in trouble, and

763
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: people were pointing at the operating system looking out a date.

764
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: Although um, black Rim is supposed to to introduce a

765
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: new operating system any day now, um, But for this

766
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 1: to happen right after the iPhone four s announcement, so

767
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: you've got a new iPhone on the market, and the

768
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: upcoming Google Android ice Cream Sandwich announcement, so you're gonna

769
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: have a new version of the Android operating system. Plus

770
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,399
Speaker 1: the release of iOS five. The release of iOS five,

771
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: the release of a new Samsung Android phone that's supposed

772
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: to be really advanced. These are all bad things for

773
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 1: to to You know, it's all happening around the same time,

774
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 1: and for RIM to suffer a catstrophic failure like this

775
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,839
Speaker 1: when everybody else is releasing positive news that it's it's

776
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: tough and um and to be fair, you know, it

777
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 1: wasn't that information necessarily got lost during this process. Most

778
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 1: of it was just delayed by hours, like there'll be

779
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 1: a three hour delay from when someone would send something

780
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: and when you might receive it, which of course is

781
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,919
Speaker 1: bad if it's an urgent matter. But anyway, so they're

782
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: dealing with that right now. They're also dealing with other issues,

783
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: like there are governments around the world that want to

784
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: be able to access the information that's sent across the

785
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 1: BlackBerry UM network, and so that raises ethical questions like

786
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: do you do you agree to do that? Do you

787
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: agree to give the governments the access to the information?

788
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 1: Do you keep it encrypted? Because you know, you're trying

789
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 1: to serve your customers and m has had to deal

790
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: with some pretty sticky situations there. They also got some

791
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: bad press inn during the riots in London because it

792
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: turned out that a lot of the kids in London

793
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:54,800
Speaker 1: have Blackberries and they were using the BlackBerry Messaging Service,

794
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: which is an encrypted service to send messages between each other.

795
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: Two targets Pacific businesses during the riots. So it was

796
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: it was it would have required the cooperation of BlackBerry

797
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 1: itself to provide the government. Uh, you know, they couldn't

798
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 1: be spied upon, right, They would have to get BlackBerry

799
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: to share that information with them. Of course, BlackBerry agreed

800
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: to cooperate. But it doesn't help again that that for

801
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: a lot of people, that the problem, you big pr problem.

802
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 1: Yet has been a rough year for Research in Motion.

803
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: Now some people have already said that this might be

804
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end, or that perhaps Research Emotions

805
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: should look at selling off its assets to other companies

806
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: and just kind of dissolving. So so elements of BlackBerry

807
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: would continue to live on, it's just they would go

808
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: under a different corporate name. People said the same thing

809
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: about Apple about twenty years ago. Right, So there's there's

810
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: always the chance that that Research in Motion could turn

811
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: this around and become a very powerful player in the

812
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: telecom space. Again, I mean, there's nothing necessarily stopping them.

813
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 1: It's just that the you know, the odds are definitely

814
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 1: stacking against them. But that doesn't mean they can't overcome

815
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: those odds. So we'll have to watch and see and

816
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: find out what happens. We'll also have to see if

817
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: if they they have a change in leadership, because for

818
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. RIM has also received a

819
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: lot of criticism about having co c e O s

820
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: and saying that that kind of sends a mixed message

821
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: to shareholders and it might be better to have a

822
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: single person hold the position of CEO to give a

823
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: unified vision for the company and be able to message

824
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: that out to everybody. Both consumers and retailers are shareholders

825
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: everyone and and employees of rem Well. That wraps up

826
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 1: another classic episode of tech Stuff. I hope you enjoyed

827
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: this march down memory lane. If you want to learn

828
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: more about the podcast, including ways to contact us, head

829
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: on over to tech Stuff podcast dot com. And don't

830
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: forget we have our merchandise store over at t public

831
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: dot com slash tech stuff where you can get all

832
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: your tech stuff merch needs. You know, the holidays are

833
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 1: right around the corner. Let's get something for someone you love,

834
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: because every purchase goes to help the show and we

835
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,720
Speaker 1: greatly appreciate it. And I'll talk to you again really

836
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: sing for more on this and thousands of other topics

837
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 1: because at how Stuff Works dot com,