It is said that necessity is the mother of invention and that innovation thrives in the face of competition. These two factors came together in the late 1990s to alter the course of a small Canadian start-up that saw itself branch out of mobile paging and launch a totally new solution that would alter the way companies communicate to its employees and launch a new business model that telco's can use to augment the rapidly declining revenue from traditional voice service.
Recently, I had an opportunity to touch base with Katie Lee, Asia Pacific spokesperson for Research In Motion (RIM). What follows is a look at the company's rise from obscurity into dominance of mobile messaging among enterprises.
How did RIM start in the US and what was the problem the BB Service was meant to solve‾
Research In Motion (RIM) was founded in 1984 by University of Waterloo engineering student Mike Lazaridis (now President and Co-CEO at RIM) and University of Winsor engineering student Douglas Fregin. Headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, the company was set up as an electronics and computer science consulting business.
Its early focus on pagers soon gave way to two-way wireless communication when a research staff found a way to not only receive a message on a pager, but to send messages back as well. Mike Lazaridis was determined to turn this into a way to send e-mail over wireless networks.
RIM claims to be the first wireless data technology developer in North America and the first company outside Scandinavia to develop connectivity products for wireless packet-switched data communications networks.
In 1996, RIM introduced its first wireless handheld, the Inter@ctive Pager, the first two-way messaging pager, and the RIM 900 OEM Radio Modem.
The first BlackBerry was released in 1999 using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive Pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network.
The BlackBerry's early (and sustained) success was built on the fact that RIM solved the 'two mailbox' problem that no other wireless email device had done to that point. The 'two mailbox' problem revolved around having a wireless mailbox and a corporate mailbox. RIM was the first to solve this problem by providing a 'one mailbox' solution with a combination of their BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server that retrieves e-mail using triple DES encryption and 'push" technology to the connected devices.'
In 2002, the BlackBerry® Internet Service was launched addressing needs of individual customers and small businesses. And the rest is history. Although still more widely known for the BlackBerry mobile email device and service, the provides platforms and solutions for seamless access to time-sensitive information, including email, phone, SMS messaging, Internet and intranet-based applications.
What is RIM's value proposition to telcos‾
RIM adopts an indirect distribution model and offers BlackBerry through partnerships with telecom operators and channel partners around the world. Telecom operators globally are the major medium to market BlackBerry. RIM recently introduced a distribution channel in North America and Europe to gain extra footprint in the market. This strategy effectively combines RIM's expertise in wireless technology and operator and channel partners' knowledge of the local market, which improves customer acquisition and service, leading to more loyal and profitable relationships.