A decade ago, a BlackBerry phone was a remarkable possession. This sleek device offered features the likes of which no other mobile device
at the time could claim. Chief among them was the facility to send and
receive emails on the go right from the mobile device, without needing
to connect with the mail server through a PC. And unlike PDAs, which did provide email exchange over phone lines, one didn’t need to synchronise and “request” the server for new mails. The transformation was from pull to push; instead of a user having to pull his emails or other information (for instance, calendar updates) from his mail server, there now existed an interface, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server,
which made sure that every new mail and update was instantaneously
pushed to the user’s BlackBerry device. This capability alone propelled
Research in Motion, or RIM, BlackBerry’s maker, to the top of the
enterprise phone market.
A decade down the line, things are no longer as rosy.
In fact, they are so far removed from rosy that BlackBerry, and RIM,
are left floundering for ways to remain relevant. What has changed? How
could the principal phone provider for companies the world over suddenly
be facing an existential question-mark?
