It was all known since September 2020 when on their blog they announced that they would stop on January 4th to provide updates to the network provisioning services of its operating systems.Translated, from today the BlackBerry smartphones that turn with the homonymous operating system have stopped working.BlackBerry branded mobile phones, with Android on board, will continue to work without problems, up to the support insured by Google.
The end of an era.Blackberry in the history of telephony was a black swan that can only understand those who lived in the times of the domain of the Nokia.Because before iPhone it changed everything smartphones were not the black and lucid "tiles" all the same in the shapes like today.They had the physical keyboard and their design, the forms that distinguished them from each other.They opened, they closed, they had small or large keys, metal or rubber.There were still no foldable and not even the touch screens of now.At the beginning of the 2000s, it was Nokia's Finns of the Finns, then there were Motorola, Samsung and Sony.You sailed on the web with the WAP and the most famous game was Snake.BlackBerry was among all the nicest.Because they were a Canadian society, he had a European style and looked straight for a precise user: the professional.Those with the BlackBerry - the first came out in 2013 - were recognized because they were people that the phone used it to work.Jacket and tie and the two hands at the edges, because the RIM phone was challenged on the sides to better press the tiny keyboards.They also aroused admiration because they wrote a lot and it was not trivial to learn to use that keyboard.After all, the only and real Enterprise smartphone have been for years.
Why did BlackBerry die?For many reasons.They did not give up their operating system when it was now clear that the market was moving towards an Android-IOS duopoly.And they embraced Google when it was too late by now.They never moved from their positions.They are and were Canadian, moreover.Let's say they were mainly victim of what the platform economy is called.To try to describe their parable, here are three graphic designers made by statesman who tell the growth and decline well.
This graph starts since 2008.A few months after the launch of the first iPhone.At the time there was Steve Jobs who in San Francisco changed the history of world telephony inventing the App Store and smartphones.As can be seen until 2012, sales are not bad but the market share drops.There is a new player in the field that will slowly pieces Nokia who has been illegal until then changing the rules of the game for all players.
Here we are in 2016.BlackBerry daclì will soon stop producing smartphones.Ilcece John Chen announces it.The sales number is below 4 million smartphones.In 2011 the company that had once been a pioneer in this sector had sent more than 50 million phones.At the time, many blamed Rim not to have wanted to abandon physical keyboards for touch screens but as we saw later it would not have served.After giving up the mobile phone market from the hardware point of view, the group had focused exclusively on the development and improvement of software for companies and professionals, under the name of BlackBerry Limited.
The Duopoly Smartphone.The new generations are used to us.Which was born in the short century less.The panorama of smartphones has actually turned into a Duopoly in recent years, after Google's iOS of Apple and Android have ousted any other platform including Microsoft's Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS and Samsung's mobile operating system called Bada.This graph is last year.According to IDC, Android devices represented 84.1 percent of global smartphone sales in 2020, while Apple's iOS represented the remaining 15.9 percent.In 2010, the combined market share of Android and iOS was less than 40%, with Nokia, Microsoft, Blackberry and others sharing the rest of the market.
And what happened to it?
The Smartphone brand, granted to the Chinese TCL license, passed at the end of 2020 to the Indian startup Onwardmobility.This could launch a series of new terminals during the year, at a reduced cost, with 5G connection and mainly dedicated to the internal market.Remembering the decision made over two years ago, Blackberry wanted to thank his customers.“Thanks to our numerous faithful customers and partners who have followed us over the years.We invite you to know more about how BlackBerry provides software and security services to businesses and governments around the world ".