BlackBerry Limited (BB) brand, formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM) until January 2013, has gone through a series of ups and downs. Accounting for the 3:1 stock split in August 2007, BlackBerry’s stock price has practically plunged from highs of $146 to roughly $4.50 today.1 How did a high-flying revolutionary IT company get so badly eclipsed?
What became of Blackberry? For a while, the company, which was once the most valued in Canada, was virtually a zombie stock. Is the stock’s portrayal accurate, especially for a company whose revenues are increasing 20% year on year? Let’s find out as we go through the history of Blackberry and the significance of its logo.
Much has been written about what happened to BlackBerry over the years. The company, which was once briefly the most valuable in Canada, has been ailing for a long time, with its shares hovering flat around $10, virtually a zombie stock. The company missed projections in the second quarter of 2019, causing a new sell-off and a new wave of stories.
The recent history of Blackberry provides an intriguing case study on how a hardware company may survive and evolve into a more modern software company, as well as how a company that was thought to be a dead man walking might change (or perhaps fail to turn) its fortunes. In some respects, it’s also a cautionary tale about the value of perception.
Blackberry Brand History
Blackberry Brand History: Early years and development, 1984-2001
Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin launched Research In Motion Limited in March 1984. Lazaridis was a University of Waterloo engineering student at the time, while Fregin was a University of Windsor engineering student.
RIM was the first company outside of Scandinavia to produce connectivity solutions for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks in 1988, making it the first wireless data technology developer in North America. They released the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader in 1995. RIM introduced the first Mobitex protocol converter in 1991. RIM released the first Mobitex point-of-sale solution in 1992, a protocol converter box that interacted with existing point-of-sale terminal equipment to enable wireless communication. They introduced the RIMGate, the first general-purpose Mobitex X.25 gateway, in 1993.
RIM released Ericsson Mobidem AT and Intel wireless modems with RIM modem firmware the same year. RIM introduced the first Mobitex mobile point-of-sale terminal in 1994. The RIM got the Emmy Award for Technical Innovation and the KPMG High Technology Award the same year. They also released Freedom, the first Type II PCMCIA radio modem for Mobitex, in 1995.
Through a private placement in the privately held company, Canadian institutional and venture capital investors financed RIM in 1995. Working Ventures Canadian Fund Inc. led the initial venture round with a C$5,000,000 investment, with the profits going toward the completion of RIM’s two-way paging system hardware and software development.
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Prior to its first public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in January 1998 under the symbol RIM, the company raised a total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing.
RIM launched the Interactive Pager, the first two-way messaging pager, and the RIM 900 OEM radio modem in 1996. The company collaborated with RAM Mobile Data and Ericsson to transform the Mobitex wireless data network developed by Ericsson into a two-way paging and wireless e-mail network.
The release of the Inter@ctive Pager 950, which began delivering in August 1998, was pivotal in this evolution. This device, about the size of a bar of soap, competed with Motorola’s Skytel two-way paging network.
RIM released the BlackBerry 850 pager in 1999. The device was named after the druplets of the blackberry fruit, and it could receive push emails from a Microsoft Exchange Server using its associated server software, BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).
The BlackBerry established the way for subsequent enterprise-oriented products from the company, such as the BlackBerry 957, the first BlackBerry smartphone, released in April 2000. The BlackBerry OS platform and BES continued to expand in capability, while the addition of encryption and S/MIME support aided in the rising use of BlackBerry smartphones by governments and corporations.
Total assets stated in RIM’s balance sheet increased eightfold between fiscal 1999 and 2001 due to tremendous capacity expansion.
Blackberry Brand History: Global expansion and competition from 2001 to 2011.
RIM quickly began to produce BlackBerry devices geared at the consumer market, beginning with the BlackBerry Pearl 8100, the first BlackBerry phone to integrate multimedia functions like a camera. The Pearl series, as well as the succeeding Curve 8300 and Bold 9000 series, were huge successes. Extensive carrier relationships fueled BlackBerry’s rapid global expansion in both enterprise and consumer sectors.
Despite the introduction of Apple’s first iPhone in 2007, BlackBerry maintained extraordinary market share growth well into 2011. The release of Apple’s iPhone on the AT&T network in the United States in the fall of 2007 inspired RIM to release its first touchscreen smartphone for the competitor network, the BlackBerry Storm, in 2008.
The Storm sold well but received mixed negative reviews and low consumer satisfaction. Due to RIM’s early start and wider carrier distribution network, the iPhone was initially behind the BlackBerry in both shipments and active users. In the United States, the BlackBerry user base peaked in the fall of 2010 at 21 million users. The company’s global subscriber base stood at 36 million subscribers during that quarter.
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As the iPhone and Google Android gained popularity in the United States, BlackBerry began to shift its focus to other smartphone platforms. Despite this, the BlackBerry line as a whole continued to thrive, fueled by strong worldwide growth. As of December 1, 2012, the company had 79 million BlackBerry users worldwide, with only 9 million remaining in the United States.
Even as the company expanded globally, investors and the media became more concerned about the company’s capacity to compete with devices from rival mobile operating systems iOS and Android. According to CNN, BlackBerry is one of six endangered US-Canadian brands. Analysts were also concerned about the co-CEOs management structure’s strategic orientation.
In addition, Larry Conlee, the company’s COO of engineering and manufacturing from 2001 to 2009, retired. Conlee was not just critical to the company’s platform manufacturing strategy; he was also a pragmatic taskmaster who ensured deadlines were met, and he had the clout to push back if Lazaridis had unreasonable expectations.
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Following repeated attempts to update their old Java platform, the company made a slew of acquisitions to aid in the development of a new, more powerful BlackBerry platform centered on the recently acquired real-time operating system QNX. During a conference call in March 2011, Research In Motion Ltd.’s then-co-CEO Jim Balsillie stated that the “launch of very powerful new BlackBerrys” (later launched as BlackBerry 10) will be in early 2012.
Analysts, on the other hand, were “concerned that premature promotion of the mysterious, ostensibly game-changing handsets might harm sales of existing BlackBerrys” (similar to the Osborne effect). In retrospect, the initial launch date was viewed as overly ambitious, and it harmed the company’s credibility at a time when its existing aging goods were steadily losing market share.
RIM revealed the long-rumored BlackBerry PlayBook tablet on September 27, 2010, the first product running on the new QNX platform known as BlackBerry Tablet OS, and the BlackBerry PlayBook was formally released to US and Canadian users on April 19, 2011.
The PlayBook was chastised for being pushed to market in an unfinished state and selling poorly. Slow sales and inventory pileups forced the company to lower prices and write down the inventory value by $485 million after shipments of 900,000 tablets during its first three quarters on the market.
Blackberry Brand History: Primary opposition
BlackBerry’s main competitors are devices running Android and the Apple iPhone. For many years, BlackBerry was the market leader in numerous markets, primarily the United States. The introduction of the Apple iPhone and, later, Google’s Android platform slowed BlackBerry’s growth and resulted in sales declines in various areas, most notably the United States. As a result, the corporation’s ability to survive as an independent company was questioned by the media and analysts.
When Apple’s iPhone debuted in 2007, it drew widespread media attention, with several sites dubbing it a “BlackBerry killer.” While BlackBerry sales climbed, the newer iPhone grew at a quicker rate, and the 87 percent loss in BlackBerry’s stock price between 2010 and 2013 may be linked entirely to the performance of the iPhone device.
The first three iPhone models (launched in 2007) were generally behind BlackBerry in sales, as RIM had significant advantages in carrier and enterprise support; but, Apple continued to gain market share.
In October 2008, Apple momentarily surpassed RIM in quarterly sales when it reported that it had sold 6.9 million iPhones to RIM’s 6.1 million, despite the firms’ partially overlapping quarters. Although Apple’s iPhone sales fell to 4.3 million in the next quarter and RIM’s climbed to 7.8 million, some investors saw this as a sign of weakness. With the launching of the iPhone 4, Apple’s iPhone began to sell more phones quarterly than BlackBerry in 2010.
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The BlackBerry reached its peak in the United States in September 2010, with about 22 million users, or 37% of the 58.7 million American smartphone users at the time, using a BlackBerry. BlackBerry’s use in the United States thereafter began to wane, with Apple’s installed base in the United States eventually passing BlackBerry in April 2011.
The iPhone’s sales continued to rise, as did the smartphone market, while the BlackBerry began to lose consumers in the United States. Only 1.59 million (0.8%) of the 198.9 million smartphone users in the United States were using BlackBerry in February 2016, compared to 87.32 million (43.9%) using an iPhone.
Google’s Android mobile operating system, which runs on hardware from a variety of manufacturers including Sony, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, and many more, increased BlackBerry’s rivalry. In January 2010, Android powered only 3 million (7.1%) of the 42.7 million Smartphones in use in the United States, compared to 18 million BlackBerry devices (43%).
Within a year, Android surpassed BlackBerry’s installed base in the United States. Only 1.59 million (0.8%) of the 198.9 million smartphone users in the United States were using BlackBerry in February 2016, compared to 104.82 million (52.7%) using Android.
While RIM’s secure encrypted network drew corporate customers, their handsets were sometimes regarded as less appealing to consumers than iPhone and Android smartphones. Developers frequently created consumer applications for such platforms rather than BlackBerry.
Due to employee feedback, even enterprise clients began to implement BYOD rules in the 2010s. The company was also chastised for having obsolete and ugly hardware and operating systems in comparison to the competition, as well as having inferior browsing capabilities.
Is the Blackberry a high-end phone?
Blackberrys, a high-end menswear label noted for their formal linen clothing, has long been recognized as a label catering to a small but dedicated clientele.
Can you name the BlackBerry brand?
The BlackBerry Priv, DTEK50, and DTEK60 were BlackBerry’s last in-house-developed smartphones before the company abandoned its OS in favor of Google’s Android.
Blackberry Brand History: 2011-2015 – Strategic shifts and reorganization
In the summer of 2011, the company let off 2,000 employees due to slowing growth. In September 2011, the company’s BlackBerry Internet Service went down for several days, affecting millions of consumers. The outage occurred as Apple was preparing to release the iPhone 4S, sparking fears of huge defections from the platform.
Shortly after, in October 2011, RIM introduced BBX, a new platform for future BlackBerry handsets built on the same QNX-based technology as the PlayBook. However, due to a trademark infringement claim involving the name BBX, the platform was renamed BlackBerry 10. The endeavor proved too difficult, and the company postponed its debut from December 2011 to some time in 2012. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie resigned as CEOs of the company on January 22, 2012, and were succeeded by executive Thorsten Heins. The company recorded its first financial loss in years on March 29, 2012. Heins began restructuring the company, announcing intentions to lay off 5,000 employees, replacing senior executives, and postponing the new QNX-based operating system for phones (“BlackBerry 10”) for a second time until January 2013.
Blackberry Brand History: BlackBerry 10
RIM officially unveiled BlackBerry 10 and two new devices based on the OS, the BlackBerry Z10, and Q10, on January 30, 2013, after much criticism and repeated delays. The BlackBerry Z10, the first BlackBerry smartphone to run BlackBerry 10, was released worldwide in January 2013 and went on sale immediately in the United Kingdom. Other countries will follow.
The Z10 was a significant change from prior BlackBerry phones, with a fully touch-based design, a dual-core processor, and a high-definition display. At launch, BlackBerry 10 had 70,000 applications available, which the company anticipated to increase to 100,000 by the time the device was released in the United States.
In support of the launch, the company aired its first Super Bowl television advertisement in the United States and Canada during Super Bowl XLVII. Heins stated, “If you look at other suppliers’ ability to differentiate, there’s very little wiggle room. We looked at it seriously—but if you understand what the promise of BlackBerry is to its user base, it makes history” (referring to Apple and Samsung).
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The company also stated during the BlackBerry 10 launch event that it would change its public brand from Research In Motion to BlackBerry. Customers in some markets “already know the company as BlackBerry,” therefore the name change was undertaken to “place the BlackBerry brand at the center” of the company’s multiple brands.
While a shareholder vote on a formal name change to BlackBerry Limited will take place at the company’s next annual general meeting, its ticker symbols on the TSX and NASDAQ changed to BB and BBRY on February 4, 2013.
On August 12, 2013, the company disclosed that it was available for acquisition and stated in an official news release to Canada’s securities regulators:
The company’s board of directors has organized a special committee to investigate strategic alternatives to boost value and scale in order to expedite BlackBerry 10 deployment. Among these choices could be possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the Company, or other transactions.
Blackberry Brand History: Prem-Watsa/Fairfax Agreement
Mark Wiseman, CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, claimed that if BlackBerry went private, he would consider investing. Prem Watsa, BlackBerry’s largest shareholder, also resigned from the company’s board of directors on August 12, 2013.
On September 20, 2013, the company reported 4,500 layoffs and a CAD$1 billion operational loss. Three days later, the company announced that it had signed a letter of intent to be bought for $9 per share by a consortium led by Prem Watsa-owned Fairfax Financial Holdings. Watsa also confirmed this transaction.
On September 29, 2013, BlackBerry launched a direct sales approach for clients in the United States, selling unlocked Q10 and Z10 devices directly from the BlackBerry website. On October 15, 2013, BlackBerry sent an open letter in 30 periodicals across nine countries to reassure customers that the company would continue to exist. According to Anthony Michael Sabino, a management professor at St. John’s University, “this is BlackBerry’s last-ditch bid to just exist in the face of crushing the competition in an industry it virtually established.”
Blackberry Brand History: John Chen joins BlackBerry.
On November 4, 2013, the Fairfax Prem Watsa deal was canceled in lieu of a US$1 billion cash injection, which one analyst said indicated BlackBerry’s largest shareholder’s degree of trust in the company. At the same time, BlackBerry appointed John Chen as CEO to replace Heins. BlackBerry hoped that Chen, with his reputation as a turnaround artist, could save the company, according to the Globe and Mail.
“John Chen understands how to run a mobile company and, more significantly, can make things happen in the industry,” J. According to Gold Associates Principal Analyst Jack Gold.
“By implementing a new mobility management platform and a new device strategy, we have begun transitioning the company to embrace a multi-platform, BYOD world,” Chen explained in an open letter issued immediately after his hiring. “I believe in the value of this brand, and I am certain that with the right people and the right strategy in place, we will rebuild BlackBerry for the benefit of all our constituents.”
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In an interview with Reuters in April 2014, Chen discussed his turnaround approach, indicating that he planned to invest in or collaborate with other companies in regulated industries like healthcare, financial, and legal services. He later clarified that BlackBerry’s device division remained a part of his strategy and that his company was also looking to invest in “emerging solutions such as machine-to-machine technologies that will help power the backbone of the Internet of Things,” which he expanded on at a BlackBerry Security Summit in July 2014.
The low-cost BlackBerry Z3 debuted in May 2014 in the Indonesian market, where the brand was highly popular. The low-cost handset was created in collaboration with Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, which handled product design and distribution. An analyst with London’s ABI Research said: “John Chen is just sustaining the handset business as he sorts out the way ahead.” As part of the localization effort for the promotion of the Z3, the handset’s back panel was engraved with the word “Jakarta,” but skepticism still emerged, as the handset was still not available in Indonesia.
Blackberry Brand History: The transition of software, 2015-present
“This is, of course, the very beginning of our task, and we hope that we will be able to report better results going forward… We feel pretty good about where we are,” Chen said in the first quarter of the 2015 fiscal year, while Quartz reported that stock was up 30 percent compared to the same period the previous year, and Chen expressed excitement for the release of two new handsets, both with keyboards and touch screens, in the second half of 2014. In Indonesia, Chen did not reveal sales data for the Z3 phone.
Chen revealed the BlackBerry Priv in September 2015, a keyboard-slider smartphone that runs the Android operating system with BlackBerry-developed software upgrades such as a secure bootloader, full-disk encryption, integrity protection, and the BlackBerry HUB.
As of June 2021, sales from cybersecurity ($107 million) and IoT ($43 million) accounted for 86% of Q1 2022 earnings ($174 million). “Now, we are pivoting the organization more heavily toward the market by creating two business units, Cybersecurity, and IoT… we will provide revenue and gross margin by the business unit as well as other selected metrics, which we believe will help investors gain a better understanding of the underlying performance of the business units, ultimately driving shareholder value,” Chen said.
Blackberry Brand History: Strategic purchases
Several important acquisitions helped BlackBerry extend its software and services offerings during this time. File security firm WatchDox, crisis communications pioneer AtHoc, and competitor EMM vendor Good Technology were among them. These companies’ products were gradually rebranded and merged into BlackBerry’s range.
Trefis, a Forbes contributor and analyst team, called Good a “nice strategic fit for BlackBerry’s software business,” noting that the acquisition would “help improve BlackBerry’s cross-platform EMM support and bring in a relatively large and diverse customer base, while also driving incremental revenue growth.” It also stated that the acquisition, which was the largest in the history of BlackBerry, demonstrated the company’s commitment to a software-focused turnaround strategy. It remained unsure about the company’s overall prospects.
In January 2016, Chen indicated that BlackBerry had no plans to build new BlackBerry 10 devices and that the company would only release two new Android devices in 2016. BlackBerry also launched the Good Secure EMM Suites, which combine the solutions of WatchDox and Good Technology into many tiered options alongside its existing software.
Blackberry Brand History: Collaborations on hardware licensing
On July 26, 2016, BlackBerry launched the DTEK50, a mid-range Android smartphone. Unlike the Priv, the DTEK50 was a re-branded version of an existing smartphone, the Alcatel Idol 4, manufactured by TCL Corporation, a company that the company works with on hardware. It was to be BlackBerry’s second-to-last in-house phone, following the DTEK60 in October 2016 – on September 28, 2016, BlackBerry announced that it would cease in-house hardware development to focus on software, delegating development, design, and manufacturing of its devices to third-party partners.
The first of these partners was BB Merah Putih, an Indonesian joint venture. According to Chen, the company is “no longer simply about the smartphone, but about the smart in the phone.” BlackBerry said on December 15, 2016, that it had secured a long-term agreement with TCL to continue producing BlackBerry-branded devices for sale outside of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. This collaboration was followed by an agreement with Optiemus Infracom on February 6, 2017, to manufacture devices in India and neighboring markets such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
TCL has introduced the BlackBerry KeyONE since the collaborations were announced, while BB Merah Putih has released the BlackBerry Aurora.
Blackberry Brand History: Cybersecurity advice
BlackBerry purchased the UK-based cybersecurity startup Encryption in February 2016, with the objective of expanding into the security consultancy sector. The BlackBerry SHIELD, an IT risk assessment product for corporate clients, was later published. BlackBerry’s cybersecurity business collaborated with Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, global insurance, and reinsurance provider, in April 2017. BlackBerry’s SHIELD self-assessment tool was integrated into Allied World’s FrameWRX cyber risk management product as part of this arrangement.
Blackberry Brand History: BlackBerry Safe
The BlackBerry Secure was officially released on December 8, 2016. The BlackBerry Secure billed as a “comprehensive mobile security platform for the Enterprise of Things,” strengthens the integration between BlackBerry’s acquisitions and its core portfolio. According to Forbes, it unifies all of BlackBerry’s products “under one roof.”
On February 7, 2017, BlackBerry announced the creation of the BBM Enterprise SDK, a Communication-Platform-as-a-Service development tool. The Enterprise SDK enables developers to integrate messaging functionality from BBM Enterprise into their apps. It was made available to BlackBerry partners on February 21, 2017, and was formally released on June 12, 2017.
In February 2017, 451 Research published a report on BlackBerry’s better financial status and product focus. BlackBerry’s position in the Internet of Things and its device licensing strategy was cited as assets in the research. The BBM Enterprise SDK was also mentioned, as well as various issues that the company is still encountering.
Timeline of the Blackberry Brand’s History
- 1984: Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin launched Research In Motion Limited in March 1984.
- 1988: RIM was the first company outside of Scandinavia to produce connectivity solutions for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks in 1988, making it the first wireless data technology developer in North America.
- 1992: RIM released the first Mobitex point-of-sale solution in 1992, a protocol converter box that interacted with existing point-of-sale terminal equipment to enable wireless communication.
- 1993: RIM introduced the RIMGate, the first general-purpose Mobitex X.25 gateway, in 1993.
- 1994: RIM introduced the first Mobitex mobile point-of-sale terminal in 1994.
- 1995: RIM released the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader in 1995.
- 1996: RIM launched the Interactive Pager, the first two-way messaging pager, and the RIM 900 OEM radio modem in 1996.
- 1998: Prior to its first public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in January 1998 under the symbol RIM, the company raised a total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing. The release of the Inter@ctive Pager 950, which began delivering in August 1998, was pivotal in this evolution.
- 1999: RIM released the BlackBerry 850 pager in 1999.
- 2000: BlackBerry released its first smartphone in 2000.
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- 2001: The events of September 11, 2001, and the 2001 anthrax scare emphasized the importance of BlackBerry as a security device.
- 2002: In 2002, the first BlackBerry phones were released.
- 2006: In 2006, NTP and RIM settled their battle for more than $600 million, with NTP providing RIM a license to use its patent.
- 2007: The first three iPhone models (launched in 2007) were generally behind BlackBerry in sales, as RIM had significant advantages in carrier and enterprise support; but, Apple continued to gain market share.
- 2008: In October 2008, Apple momentarily surpassed RIM in quarterly sales when it reported that it had sold 6.9 million iPhones to RIM’s 6.1 million, despite the firms’ partially overlapping quarters.
- 2010: In the United States, the BlackBerry user base peaked in the fall of 2010 at 21 million users.
- 2011: BlackBerry’s use in the United States thereafter began to wane, with Apple’s installed base in the United States eventually passing BlackBerry in April 2011. In the summer of 2011, the company let off 2,000 employees due to slowing growth.
- 2012: Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie resigned as CEOs of the company on January 22, 2012, and were succeeded by executive Thorsten Heins.
What Comes Next?
So, why was BlackBerry so badly beaten by investors, although still exhibiting double-digit growth? Investors have lost patience with the rate of change and understand how tough it is to pivot such a massive corporation (and for the second time, at that: BlackBerry started out as Research in Motion, making software for secure communications, and briefly became the most valuable company in Canada).
Pivoting a company is famously difficult, and while there are illustrious examples of organizations that have done it successfully, such as YouTube or Slack, there are also many, such as Fred Wilson, who do not consider pivoting an always sound strategy.
Following what has happened to BlackBerry over the years, it appears that today is a better time for recovery than it has been in many years. There are undoubtedly many strengths in BlackBerry’s approach, such as knowing the client base that it is best positioned to service, as well as where those strengths may play in the future, such as in the IoT and EoT arena. The sheer enormity of BlackBerry, on the other hand, makes a successful reinvention of this magnitude much more difficult. We’ll be keeping an eye on everything alongside market participants.
Is BlackBerry still producing phones?
In 2016, John Chen declared that the company would stop producing mobile phones. Instead, the company would design phones and then license its production to local companies in markets where it still had some traction, such as India with Optiemus, TCL in the United States and globally, and Merah Putih in Indonesia.
Who Purchased Cylance?
BlackBerry has paid $1.4 billion for the company of Cylance. It was not the first acquisition in the industry, but it was an important one: BlackBerry had substantial expertise in secure communications and worked with huge enterprise clients. Cylance, on the other hand, offers SMEs threat prevention software.
What Led to BlackBerry’s Demise?
BlackBerry lost its smartphone market domination to Apple and Samsung. Fundamentally, the company’s failures were tied to an excessive concentration on enterprise over consumer tastes and preferences, as well as an OS for which no apps were being developed.
The Meaning and History of the BlackBerry Brand Logo
In naming the brand, the company took the “Apple route.” BlackBerry has nothing to do with the industry in which the company operates; it is simply a word and a brand.
However, there is a rumor that the name derived from someone saying that the phone’s buttons resembled blackberry seeds.
The BlackBerry logo is memorable and easily identifiable. It is a wordmark in a bold bespoke typeface, as well as a well-known BlackBerry insignia.
Blackberry Brand Logo: 1999 – 2004
The first Blackberry logo, which debuted in 1999, had a rather simple and modest composition, with the dark red and black writing positioned beneath the graphical element in smooth black lines.
The inscription was written in full capitals in a narrower italicized sans-serif style, with the “Black” half in burgundy red and the “Berry” part in black.
So, the design element consisted of a contoured envelope image with an elongated curved line emerging from it and “covering” the logotype.
Blackberry Brand Logo: 2004 – Today
The revamp in 2004 gave the Blackberry visual identity a fresh appearance, and this style became iconic. So, the new logo is designed in a monochromatic color scheme, with an abstract geometric insignia on the left side of the letters. The emblem is made up of seven solid elements with arched right sides and flat left sides. The new logotype typeface included sleek designs with rounded angles and smooth curves.
Blackberry Brand Logo: The Symbol
The BlackBerry logo is made up of seven D-shaped figures that are arranged in three columns, 2-3-2. In the first and third columns, the figures create the letters “B” in negative space. B stands for Black and B stands for Berry.
Another indication of the insignia is the blackberry berry itself, with the D-figures resembling the texture of the fruit.
Blackberry Brand Logo: The Logotype
The wordmark is rendered in a custom grotesque typeface similar to Nimbus Sans Bold. It is italicized, which adds to the nameplate’s refinement and sophistication.
The cut-off bottom angles of the wordmark’s two letters “B” distinguish the typography.
The logo’s monotone palette appears to be more than a natural decision. It emphasizes the typeface’s lines and elevates the emblem to the level of modern artwork.
Blackberry Brand Logo: Color and font
The italicized lettering from the primary BlackBerry logo is rendered in a custom sans-serif typeface that appears very energetic and strong due to the use of slanted characters. The logotype is in a designer typeface that falls in between Internacional Bold Italic and Hong Kong Medium Italic.
The Blackberry visual identity’s color palette is monochrome, with all elements drawn in flat black against a white background. This scheme not only graphically displays the brand’s name, but also demonstrates the brand’s professionalism and stability, as a symbol of quality and knowledge.
Conclusion
The BlackBerry brand is an example of the significant risks associated with the fast-paced technology sector. None of the industry rankings, forecasts, or recommendations appear to be applicable to the BlackBerry stock play. Long-term investors were burned, while only a few traders profited from the large fluctuations. Unless and until there is verifiable news of a solid purchase or collaboration, this stock will most likely stay a pure trader’s play.
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