motion 1984 2013 type public traded as tsx bb nasdaq bbry s & p tsx 60 component industry telecommunications equipment founded march 7 1984 ; 32 years ago 1984 03 07 as research in motion ltd. waterloo ontario canada founders mike lazaridis doug fregin headquarters waterloo ontario canada area served worldwide key people john s. chen chief executive officer & executive chair of the company s board of directors marty beard chief operating officer products blackberry messenger blackberry blackberry playbook blackberry 10 blackberry enterprise server blackberry internet service qnx revenue us 2.160 billion 2016 1 operating income us 223 million 2016 1 net income us 208 million 2016 1 total assets us 5.534 billion 2016 1 total equity us 3.208 billion 2016 1 owner primecap management company 14.6 % 2 fairfax financial holdings limited 8.97 % 3 number of employees 4 534 february 29 2016 4 website see tfm www.blackberry.com blackberry limited formerly known as research in motion limited rim 5 6 is a canadian multinational telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the blackberry brand of smartphones and tablets but also well known worldwide as a provider of secure and high reliability software for industrial applications and mobile device management mdm . qnx a subsidiary of blackberry is widely recognised as a leader in automotive software industry . blackberry s software and hardware products are used worldwide by various government s agencies and by car makers and industrial plants throughout the world much of this activity being unseen by the public . the company is headquartered in waterloo ontario canada . it was founded by mike lazaridis and douglas fregin in 1984 . fregin later left the company in 2007 . 7 in 1992 lazaridis hired jim balsillie and lazaridis and balsillie served as co ceos until january 22 2012 . 8 in november 2013 john s. chen took over as ceo . his strategy is to subcontract manufacturing to foxconn and to focus on software technology . 9 the majority of blackberry s value lies in its patent portfolio which was valued in 2013 between us 2 billion and 3 billion . 10 originally a dominant innovative company in the smartphone market for business and government usage with 41 % u.s. market share in q1 2010 11 the company s dominance in the u.s. smartphone market has in recent years declined precipitously in part because of intense competition from apple s iphone and various android devices . due to such competition the company s share in the u.s. personal consumer market has reduced to 0.8 % by q1 2016 . 12 contents 1 history 1.1 early years and growth 1984 2001 1.2 global expansion and competition 2001 2011 1.2.1 primary competition 1.2.1.1 impact of the iphone 1.2.1.2 impact of android 1.2.1.3 criticism 1.3 strategic changes and restructuring 2011 present 2 financials 3 organizational changes 3.1 leadership changes 3.2 workforce reductions 4 stock fluctuations 4.1 rumored samsung buyout 5 platform transition 5.1 blackberry os java 5.2 blackberry tablet os qnx 5.3 blackberry 10 qnx 5.4 android 6 patent litigation 6.1 glenayre electronics 6.2 good technologies 6.3 handspring 6.4 ntp 6.5 xerox 6.6 visto 6.7 motorola 6.8 eatoni 6.9 mformation 7 acquisitions 7.1 slipstream data inc. 7.2 certicom 7.3 dash navigation 7.4 torch mobile 7.5 dataviz 7.6 viigo 7.7 qnx 7.8 the astonishing tribe 7.9 jaycut 7.10 tungle.me 7.11 newbay 7.12 scoreloop 7.13 gist 7.14 scroon 7.15 movirtu 7.16 secusmart 7.17 watchdox 7.18 good technology 8 controversies 8.1 stock option scandal settlement 8.2 environmental record 8.3 anonymous open letter to management 8.4 service outages 8.5 government access to servers 9 references 10 external links history edit early years and growth 1984 2001 edit logo as research in motion used prior to january 30 2013 research in motion limited was founded in march 1984 by mike lazaridis and douglas fregin . 13 at the time lazaridis was an engineering student at the university of waterloo while fregin was an engineering student at the university of windsor . 14 in 1988 rim became the first wireless data technology developer in north america and the first company outside scandinavia to develop connectivity products for mobitex wireless packet switched data communications networks . in 1990 rim introduced the digisync film keykode reader . in 1991 rim introduced the first mobitex protocol converter . in 1992 rim introduced the first mobitex point of sale solution a protocol converter box that interfaced with existing point of sale terminal equipment to enable wireless communication . in 1993 rim introduced the rimgate the first general purpose mobitex x. 25 gateway . in the same year rim launched ericsson mobidem at and intel wireless modem containing rim modem firmware . in 1994 rim introduced the first mobitex mobile point of sale terminal . in the same year rim received the emmy award for technical innovation and the kpmg high technology award . in 1995 rim introduced freedom the first type ii pcmcia radio modem for mobitex . rim s early development was financed by canadian institutional and venture capital investors in 1995 through a private placement in the privately held company . working ventures canadian fund inc. led the first venture round 15 with a c 5 000 000 investment with the proceeds being used to complete the development of rim s two way paging system hardware and software . a total of c 30 000 000 in pre ipo financing was raised by the company prior to its initial public offering on the toronto stock exchange in january 1998 under the symbol rim . 16 in 1996 rim introduced the inter ctive pager the first two way messaging pager and the rim 900 oem radio modem . the company worked with ram mobile data and ericsson to turn the ericsson developed mobitex wireless data network into a two way paging and wireless e mail network . pivotal in this development was the release of the inter ctive pager 950 which started shipping in august 1998 . about the size of a bar of soap this device competed against the skytel two way paging network developed by motorola . in 1999 rim introduced the blackberry 850 pager . named in reference to the resemblance of its keyboard s keys to the druplets of the blackberry fruit the device could receive push email from a microsoft exchange server using its complementary server software blackberry enterprise server bes . the introduction of the blackberry set the stage for future enterprise oriented products from the company such as the blackberry 957 in april 2000 the first blackberry smartphone . the blackberry os platform and bes continued to increase in functionality while the incorporation of encryption and s mime support helped blackberry devices gain increased usage by governments and businesses . 17 18 during fiscal 1999 2001 total assets declared in the rim s balance sheet grew eight fold due to massive capacity expansion . global expansion and competition 2001 2011 edit rim soon began to introduce blackberry devices aimed towards the consumer market as well beginning with the blackberry pearl 8100 the first blackberry phone to include multimedia features such as a camera . the introduction of the pearl series was highly successful as was the subsequent curve 8300 series and bold 9000 . extensive carrier partnerships fuelled the rapid expansion of blackberry users globally in both enterprise and consumer markets . despite the arrival of the first apple iphone in 2007 blackberry sustained unprecedented market share growth well into 2011 . the introduction of apple s iphone on the at & t network in the fall of 2007 in the united states prompted rim to produce its first touchscreen smartphone for the competing network in 2008 the blackberry storm . the storm sold well but suffered from mixed to poor reviews and poor customer satisfaction . 18 19 the iphone initially lagged behind the blackberry in both shipments and active users due to rim s head start and larger carrier distribution network . in the united states the blackberry user base peaked at approximately 21 million users in the fall of 2010 . 20 21 22 that quarter the company s global subscriber base stood at 36 million users . 23 as the iphone and google android accelerated growth in the united states the blackberry began to turn to other smartphone platforms . nonetheless the blackberry line as a whole continued to enjoy success spurred on by strong international growth . as of december 1 2012 the company had 79 million blackberry users globally 24 with only 9 million remaining in the united states . 25 even as the company continued to grow worldwide investors and media became increasingly alarmed about the company s ability to compete with devices from rival mobile operating systems ios and android . analysts were also worried about the strategic direction of the co ceos management structure . in june 2014 cnn released an article citing blackberry as one of six endangered us canadian brands . 26 following numerous attempts to upgrade their existing java platform the company made numerous acquisitions to help it create a new more powerful blackberry platform centered around its recently acquired real time operating system qnx . 27 in march 2011 research in motion ltd. s then co ceo jim balsillie suggested during a conference call that the launch of some powerful new blackberrys eventually released as blackberry 10 would be in early 2012 . however analysts were worried that promoting the mysterious supposedly game changing devices too early might hurt sales of existing blackberrys similar to the osborne effect . the initial launch date was seen in retrospect as too ambitious and hurt the company s credibility at a time when its existing aging products steadily lost market share . 28 on september 27 2010 rim announced the long rumoured blackberry playbook tablet the first product running on the new qnx platform known as blackberry tablet os . the blackberry playbook was officially released to u.s. and canadian consumers on april 19 2011 . the playbook was criticized for being rushed to market in an incomplete state and sold poorly . following the shipments of 900 000 tablets during its first three quarters on market slow sales and inventory pileups prompted the company to reduce prices and to write down the inventory value by 485 million . 29 primary competition edit the primary competitors of the blackberry are smartphones running android and the apple iphone with microsoft s windows phone platform emerging as a more recent competitor . for a number of years the blackberry was the leading smartphone in many markets particularly the united states . the arrival of the apple iphone and later google s android platform caused a slowdown in blackberry growth and a decline in sales in some markets most notably the united states . this led to negative media and analyst sentiment over the company s ability to continue as an independent company . 30 impact of the iphone edit when apple s iphone was first introduced in 2007 it generated substantial media attention with numerous media outlets calling it a blackberry killer . 31 32 while blackberry sales continued to grow the newer iphone grew at a faster rate and the 87 percent drop in blackberry s stock price between 2010 and 2013 is primarily attributed to the performance of the iphone handset . 33 the first three models of the iphone introduced in 2007 generally lagged behind the blackberry in sales as rim had major advantages in carrier and enterprise support ; however apple continued gaining market share . in october 2008 apple briefly passed rim in quarterly sales when they announced they had sold 6.9 million iphones to the 6.1 million sold by rim comparing partially overlapping quarters between the companies . 34 though apple s iphone sales declined to 4.3 million in the subsequent quarter 35 and rim s increased to 7.8 million