Greg's Corner

Blackberry announces they’re no longer making phones

To answer your first question, yes, Blackberry was still making phones until recently.

Anyway, in a story that’s reminiscent of MySpace’s virtual defeat at the hands of Facebook, the once mighty Blackberry has announced that they will stop making their signature phones. At one time Blackberry ruled the cell phone landscape. Not only was it the cell phone of choice for most companies but it also had a devoted consumer market as well. The practice of people being face down into their obsessive device started with the Blackberry, hence the nickname it received at the time, the Crackberry.

Then in 2007 an event happened that started the death knell for the Blackberry. That event was the release of Apple’s iPhone. Instead of having a physical keyboard and a mouse-like roller ball, the iPhone had a fully interactive touch screen with a virtual keyboard to provide more screen space than the Blackberry ever had. It also didn’t help that Google came out with its own smartphone operating system called Anndroid. While the iPhone was aimed at more affluent users, Android allowed most everyone to have access to a smartphone. Whatever edge Blackberry had soon eroded to the point of it being a punchline in jokes. People would say “Remember Blackberry?” before laughing derisively then returning to their iPhones or Smasung Galaxies.

That’s not to say that Blackberry didn’t have its hardcore base of fans. There have been many reports of the Blackberry faithful buying multiple devices and keeping the spares in their freezer when the financial writing was on the wall. It remains to be seen how long those devices will be supported now that Blackberry will focus mostly on software.