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Is visitor management system useful for companies?
5 Benefits of a Visitor Management SystemVisitors are an essential part of any organization achieving its mission and goals. Even workplaces that "don't receive visitors" receive plenty of them. Consider the HVAC service person, the pizza delivery guy, the signNow other coming for lunch and the random person dropping in to pick up a job application. Often, we recognize that visitors are some of our most important people: the manager from the main office, the high-priority client, the guests coming for a special promotional event.Every person, from the corporate bigwig to the parcel delivery service, must be greeted and have their business attended to. A visitor management system will make this process smooth and secure for both the visitor and the organization.What is a Visitor Management System?Visitor management is the process by which all visitors to an organization are greeted, identified, and moved along so they can complete their tasks. Some organizations are very informal and have no standardized system, while others utilized dedicated receptionists and still others use electronic visitor management systems to streamline the process.In most electronic visitor management systems, guests check in at a kiosk or other workstation. The software logs the visit:DateCheck-in timeNamePhone number, email address and other pertinent contact information as requestedReason for visitingPerson being metCheck-out time, if requiredThe software may also contain other features, such as the ability to automatically notify the guest’s host, send emails to the guest, open up forms for e-signature purposes and more.Utilizing an eReceptionist system has many benefits, both for the organization and for the visitor.Saving Time, Gaining ProductivityOne of the first, and largest, benefits of using an electronic visitor management system is that of saving time, and thus, improving productivity.In some flex workspaces, open floor plan offices and other informal working locations, there is no formal receptionist. Organizations have chosen not to hire someone for the sole purpose of greeting those who come through the door. This can leave visitors in a bind.When a visitor enters a building, the first thought on their mind is, “Where am I supposed to go, and what am I supposed to do?” In such a workspace, this is likely the scenario that plays out:The visitor approaches the first person they see. This unlucky soul either was assigned to a desk near the door or happened to sit there. Thus, their work gets interrupted as they assist the visitor.If the visitor is lucky, the first person they see will know exactly where their host is and either walks them to the host or call the host to have them come to meet their guest. Either way, the employee is using their work time to assist the guest.If the visitor isn’t so lucky, the first person they see may not know their host or their host’s location. This employee then calls to the neighboring employees, or places multiple phone calls, wasting not only their own time but the time of others.In the worst-case scenario, the host can’t be located and nearly everyone in the office has been interrupted.A well-marked visitor check-in kiosk makes the question of what a visitor is supposed to do completely moot. The obvious answer is to walk to the kiosk and start the check-in process. The system asks the guest to take a seat while it automatically contacts the host via their communication preferences.Even in organizations where a receptionist is available, it is highly likely the receptionist has other duties to attend to aside from assisting guests. Filling out a registration form for the guest, placing phone calls to hosts, or possibly walking the guest to the host is not always a valuable use of time. If a guest can fill out the check-in form themselves, it allows the receptionist to answer the phone, or type up some notes during this same time.In the very busiest of offices, multiple check-in kiosks can assist multiple guests at once, eliminating wait times. This also frees up employees to help with the questions and tasks most in need of being addressed.When push comes to shove, paying for a machine for rote tasks like visitor management is much more cost-effective than paying one or more dedicated employee.Better Data CollectionHave you been keeping paper visitor logs? If so, take a few moments to flip through the last few pages. Can you read the handwriting? Are your guests bothering to fill out all the slots, like check-in/out times and their email addresses?What do you do with the paper logs after the pages have been filled? Some common options:Most Likely: File them in the circular file, i.e. the trash.Also Likely: File them away in an actual file cabinet or box, never to be seen again until an office purge, at which time they’ll end up in the shredder.Least Likely: Have someone enter all the information into a log or Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system. Only to never be looked at again. Not a great use of valuable employee time.The truly sad fact is that visitor logs contain valuable data, but if that data is being collected on paper, it usually goes to waste.On the other hand, electronic visitor management systems make collecting valuable data much, much simpler. They do so in a number of ways.Required Fields: Visitor management systems can designate fields as required. No longer can guests leave the most important information blank.Legible/Accurate: Since guests are not hand-writing their information, there are no questions at all about legibility. While it is always possible that a guest will mistype their own contact information, it is more likely that a receptionist will enter incorrect information when retyping what they hear, or retyping off a paper log. A guest is more apt to catch a misspelled name or an incorrect phone number when they type it themselves.Form Inclusion: Computers have the ability to include attachments. A human receptionist might forget to have a visitor fill out a non-disclosure agreement or sign a waiver, but a computer never will. An e-signature appwill collect these signatures for you, and file them away until they are needed.Automatic Customer Relations: A great digital visitor management system can be set up to automatically transfer visitor data into your CRM. Once in place, this valuable information allows you to follow up with guests in whatever way is suitable. You can make a great impression by sending thank you notes to job candidates, special offers to potential clients, and information to vendors.Visitor Privacy: Digital vs. PaperYour visitor’s privacy is important. While people share their information in a multitude of ways, people generally prefer to decide for themselves with whom they share their information. A visitor sign-in app collects important information in a secure way.Privacy is not very well maintained if you are using a paper visitor log. Every guest who arrives can see who came before them. Salespeople and job candidates can see if their competitors have been through. Unless the logbook is under a constant, watchful eye, anyone can flip through the pages and collect as much information as they choose. People fishing for email addresses or phone numbers could snap photos using their smartphones.Unlike a paper log, a digital sign-in app keeps this information secure. Guests can’t see who signed in before; they only see their own information on the screen during their sign-in process. Once the final button of the sign-in process has been clicked, the information is quickly and securely filed away in the database.Organizational SecurityIn today’s world, security is an increasing concern for organizations of all sizes and types.Collecting the information of all those who visit your organization can be vitally necessary. Security needs vary among different organizations, but a sign-in system carries a number of security benefits.Meeting legal requirements: Some organizations are required by various laws to keep a record of every person who has been on site. Digital databases with visitor sign-in help meet these regulations quickly and efficiently.Crime deterrent: Requiring all guests to sign in can be a deterrent for those who might have the intent to commit a crime. If the person enters the building with the intent to do harm, having to sign in might be enough to make them think twice, turn around and walk away. Those who face unanticipated temptation, like seeing a laptop or tablet sitting on an unattended desk, may remember that they signed in and won’t bother.Investigative tool: On the other hand, someone who commits a crime on the spur of the moment – like snagging that laptop off the desk – may forget about having signed in. Given that the digital sign-in saves date and time of check-in and possibly also check-out, the data will be useful for the investigation. If it is clear the crime was committed during a set period of time, the records of who was in the building at that time can help narrow down the pool of suspects. Some systems may even take photos of all visitors, which can be incredibly useful for visually identifying suspects, especially if your organization has security cameras in place.Identifying visitors: Some systems have the ability to print visitor identification badges. The security benefits of badges are fairly obvious. Depending on your company policy, visitors may not be allowed in the building unattended, or will be restricted from certain areas. The visual indicator that someone is a visitor can help employees keep an eye out for people who aren’t where they are supposed to be.Keeping everyone safe: Having records of check-ins and check-outs of all visitors allows security personnel to see if the building is empty before closing up for the night, or at the end of each shift. If a person seems not to have left the building in a timely manner, then a security guard can go looking for them. If they are up to no good – hiding away in a stairway with the intent to steal things after hours – they are more likely to be stopped before they can get started. On the other hand, if the visitor has fallen ill and fainted in an out-of-the-way place, like a bathroom stall, they’ll likely be found and help can be called. And if there is a true emergency, like a fire, the data stored in the cloud can help determine if everyone has evacuated safely.A Professional ImageLast, but certainly not least, a digital sign-in app helps you present a professional image to your visitors.Modern: A digital kiosk presents a clean, up-to-date system to visitors. No messy paper log can show you have entered the modern era like an iPad receptionist can.Branded Messages: Your digital system can be branded with your colors, your products, and your message. Your visitors will be immersed in your brand from the moment they walk through the doors. A digital system can be a continuation of that, introducing them to even more of what you want them to see.Great First Impression: A harried receptionist – or no receptionist at all – can make a visitor wonder if your organization has its act together. A self-check-in kiosk shows that you’ve thought ahead and planned for visitors. It gives the impression that you are organized and professional.Summary: Benefits That Make a DifferenceWith all the benefits a digital visitor management system has to offer, it is clear why so many organizations are giving them a try.Airports use self-check-in kiosks in order to let the employees handle the real challenges.Schools use visitor check-in systems for security purposes so they know exactly who is in the building with the students.Coworking locations use them to contact hosts in a fast, efficient manner when a formal receptionist doesn’t make sense.Businesses of all kinds, from manufacturing to sales, use them to ensure their guests are welcomed, are where they are supposed to be, and walk away with a great impression of the organization.In the end, the goal of visitor management is to do exactly that: to help guests do what they are supposed to do and meet who they are supposed to meet as quickly, effectively, securely and professionally as possible.Originally posted by Greetly check-in app at 5 Benefits of a Visitor Management System | Greetly The Receptionist Reposted with permission.
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What is the impact of visitor management software in business?
Visitor management refers to tracking the usage of a public building or site. By gathering increasing amounts of information, a Visitor Management System can record the usage of the facilities by specific visitors and provide documentation of visitor's whereaboutsThe traditional way of doing things is gingerly replaced by artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and workplace sensors. Manual logbooks are replaced by smart cloud-based visitor management system leading to more efficiency and security.To keep up with generational trends and make offices future ready an organization should have a balance of Human Resources and digitization. There was a wave of fear among people that computers might replace all manpower in the future but now computers have become an essential part of our professional as well as personal life.People have come to understand that technology can be productively used to make their lives easier and now technology doesn’t threaten them.Advantages:Employees are free to take up more responsibilities, be more productive and engage in brainstorming activities all thanks to office digitization. Automation decreases the time spent on tedious tasks and increases efficiency. Office digitization not only just increases employees productivity it also increases employee gratification.The location has become extraneous, in the present time. Through office digitization, all business meetings and collaborations are taking place digitally.Every business has to deal with data on some of the other levels, from visitors information to financial records. Office digitization helps to efficiently store, manage, retrieve and access data as per need. Office carbonates filled with papers are now history and now all the data can be stored and accessed in a few seconds from anywhere, anytime!The office eco-system is not only restricted to its employees but also its visitors. A visitor can be either an existing customer or a potential one like a job applicant, vendor, consultant or delivery man. Out-dated binders are being replaced by smart visitor management systems which are not only used for digitization but also inflates office security by data validations.For efficient management of visitors try Ara – visitor management software .
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Should I use a cloud-based visitor management system in my office?
5 Benefits of a Visitor Management SystemVisitors are an essential part of any organization achieving its mission and goals. Even workplaces that "don't receive visitors" receive plenty of them. Consider the HVAC service person, the pizza delivery guy, the signNow other coming for lunch and the random person dropping in to pick up a job application. Often, we recognize that visitors are some of our most important people: the manager from the main office, the high-priority client, the guests coming for a special promotional event.Every person, from the corporate bigwig to the parcel delivery service, must be greeted and have their business attended to. A visitor management system will make this process smooth and secure for both the visitor and the organization.What is a Visitor Management System?Visitor management is the process by which all visitors to an organization are greeted, identified, and moved along so they can complete their tasks. Some organizations are very informal and have no standardized system, while others utilized dedicated receptionists and still others use electronic visitor management systems to streamline the process.In most electronic visitor management systems, guests check in at a kiosk or other workstation. The software logs the visit:DateCheck-in timeNamePhone number, email address and other pertinent contact information as requestedReason for visitingPerson being metCheck-out time, if requiredThe software may also contain other features, such as the ability to automatically notify the guest’s host, send emails to the guest, open up forms for e-signature purposes and more.Utilizing an eReceptionist system has many benefits, both for the organization and for the visitor.Saving Time, Gaining ProductivityOne of the first, and largest, benefits of using an electronic visitor management system is that of saving time, and thus, improving productivity.In some flex workspaces, open floor plan offices and other informal working locations, there is no formal receptionist. Organizations have chosen not to hire someone for the sole purpose of greeting those who come through the door. This can leave visitors in a bind.When a visitor enters a building, the first thought on their mind is, “Where am I supposed to go, and what am I supposed to do?” In such a workspace, this is likely the scenario that plays out:The visitor approaches the first person they see. This unlucky soul either was assigned to a desk near the door or happened to sit there. Thus, their work gets interrupted as they assist the visitor.If the visitor is lucky, the first person they see will know exactly where their host is and either walks them to the host or call the host to have them come to meet their guest. Either way, the employee is using their work time to assist the guest.If the visitor isn’t so lucky, the first person they see may not know their host or their host’s location. This employee then calls to the neighboring employees, or places multiple phone calls, wasting not only their own time but the time of others.In the worst-case scenario, the host can’t be located and nearly everyone in the office has been interrupted.A well-marked visitor check-in kiosk makes the question of what a visitor is supposed to do completely moot. The obvious answer is to walk to the kiosk and start the check-in process. The system asks the guest to take a seat while it automatically contacts the host via their communication preferences.Even in organizations where a receptionist is available, it is highly likely the receptionist has other duties to attend to aside from assisting guests. Filling out a registration form for the guest, placing phone calls to hosts, or possibly walking the guest to the host is not always a valuable use of time. If a guest can fill out the check-in form themselves, it allows the receptionist to answer the phone, or type up some notes during this same time.In the very busiest of offices, multiple check-in kiosks can assist multiple guests at once, eliminating wait times. This also frees up employees to help with the questions and tasks most in need of being addressed.When push comes to shove, paying for a machine for rote tasks like visitor management is much more cost-effective than paying one or more dedicated employee.Better Data CollectionHave you been keeping paper visitor logs? If so, take a few moments to flip through the last few pages. Can you read the handwriting? Are your guests bothering to fill out all the slots, like check-in/out times and their email addresses?What do you do with the paper logs after the pages have been filled? Some common options:Most Likely: File them in the circular file, i.e. the trash.Also Likely: File them away in an actual file cabinet or box, never to be seen again until an office purge, at which time they’ll end up in the shredder.Least Likely: Have someone enter all the information into a log or Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system. Only to never be looked at again. Not a great use of valuable employee time.The truly sad fact is that visitor logs contain valuable data, but if that data is being collected on paper, it usually goes to waste.On the other hand, electronic visitor management systems make collecting valuable data much, much simpler. They do so in a number of ways.Required Fields: Visitor management systems can designate fields as required. No longer can guests leave the most important information blank.Legible/Accurate: Since guests are not hand-writing their information, there are no questions at all about legibility. While it is always possible that a guest will mistype their own contact information, it is more likely that a receptionist will enter incorrect information when retyping what they hear, or retyping off a paper log. A guest is more apt to catch a misspelled name or an incorrect phone number when they type it themselves.Form Inclusion: Computers have the ability to include attachments. A human receptionist might forget to have a visitor fill out a non-disclosure agreement or sign a waiver, but a computer never will. An e-signature app will collect these signatures for you, and file them away until they are needed.Automatic Customer Relations: A great digital visitor management system can be set up to automatically transfer visitor data into your CRM. Once in place, this valuable information allows you to follow up with guests in whatever way is suitable. You can make a great impression by sending thank you notes to job candidates, special offers to potential clients, and information to vendors.Visitor Privacy: Digital vs. PaperYour visitor’s privacy is important. While people share their information in a multitude of ways, people generally prefer to decide for themselves with whom they share their information. A visitor sign-in app collects important information in a secure way.Privacy is not very well maintained if you are using a paper visitor log. Every guest who arrives can see who came before them. Salespeople and job candidates can see if their competitors have been through. Unless the logbook is under a constant, watchful eye, anyone can flip through the pages and collect as much information as they choose. People fishing for email addresses or phone numbers could snap photos using their smartphones.Unlike a paper log, a digital sign-in app keeps this information secure. Guests can’t see who signed in before; they only see their own information on the screen during their sign-in process. Once the final button of the sign-in process has been clicked, the information is quickly and securely filed away in the database.Organizational SecurityIn today’s world, security is an increasing concern for organizations of all sizes and types.Collecting the information of all those who visit your organization can be vitally necessary. Security needs vary among different organizations, but a sign-in system carries a number of security benefits.Meeting legal requirements: Some organizations are required by various laws to keep a record of every person who has been on site. Digital databases with visitor sign-in help meet these regulations quickly and efficiently.Crime deterrent: Requiring all guests to sign in can be a deterrent for those who might have the intent to commit a crime. If the person enters the building with the intent to do harm, having to sign in might be enough to make them think twice, turn around and walk away. Those who face unanticipated temptation, like seeing a laptop or tablet sitting on an unattended desk, may remember that they signed in and won’t bother.Investigative tool: On the other hand, someone who commits a crime on the spur of the moment – like snagging that laptop off the desk – may forget about having signed in. Given that the digital sign-in saves date and time of check-in and possibly also check-out, the data will be useful for the investigation. If it is clear the crime was committed during a set period of time, the records of who was in the building at that time can help narrow down the pool of suspects. Some systems may even take photos of all visitors, which can be incredibly useful for visually identifying suspects, especially if your organization has security cameras in place.Identifying visitors: Some systems have the ability to print visitor identification badges. The security benefits of badges are fairly obvious. Depending on your company policy, visitors may not be allowed in the building unattended, or will be restricted from certain areas. The visual indicator that someone is a visitor can help employees keep an eye out for people who aren’t where they are supposed to be.Keeping everyone safe: Having records of check-ins and check-outs of all visitors allows security personnel to see if the building is empty before closing up for the night, or at the end of each shift. If a person seems not to have left the building in a timely manner, then a security guard can go looking for them. If they are up to no good – hiding away in a stairway with the intent to steal things after hours – they are more likely to be stopped before they can get started. On the other hand, if the visitor has fallen ill and fainted in an out-of-the-way place, like a bathroom stall, they’ll likely be found and help can be called. And if there is a true emergency, like a fire, the data stored in the cloud can help determine if everyone has evacuated safely.A Professional ImageLast, but certainly not least, a digital sign-in app helps you present a professional image to your visitors.Modern: A digital kiosk presents a clean, up-to-date system to visitors. No messy paper log can show you have entered the modern era like an iPad receptionist can.Branded Messages: Your digital system can be branded with your colors, your products, and your message. Your visitors will be immersed in your brand from the moment they walk through the doors. A digital system can be a continuation of that, introducing them to even more of what you want them to see.Great First Impression: A harried receptionist – or no receptionist at all – can make a visitor wonder if your organization has its act together. A self-check-in kiosk shows that you’ve thought ahead and planned for visitors. It gives the impression that you are organized and professional.Summary: Benefits That Make a DifferenceWith all the benefits a digital visitor management system has to offer, it is clear why so many organizations are giving them a try.Airports use self-check-in kiosks in order to let the employees handle the real challenges.Schools use visitor check-in systems for security purposes so they know exactly who is in the building with the students.Coworking locations use them to contact hosts in a fast, efficient manner when a formal receptionist doesn’t make sense.Businesses of all kinds, from manufacturing to sales, use them to ensure their guests are welcomed, are where they are supposed to be, and walk away with a great impression of the organization.In the end, the goal of visitor management is to do exactly that: to help guests do what they are supposed to do and meet who they are supposed to meet as quickly, effectively, securely and professionally as possible.Originally posted by Greetly iPad receptionist at 5 Benefits of a Visitor Management System | Greetly The Receptionist Reposted with permission.
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What is the main reason of the downfall of blackberry company?
Shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon turned to Motorola and Google instead.In 2012, one-time co-CEO Jim Balsillie quit the board and cut all ties to BlackBerry in protest after his plan to shift focus to instant-messaging software, which had been opposed by founder Mike Lazaridis, was killed by current CEO Thorsten Heins.Mr. Lazaridis opposed the launch plan for the BlackBerry 10 phones and argued strongly in favour of emphasizing keyboard devices. But Mr. Heins and his executives did not take the advice and launched the touchscreen Z10, with disastrous resultsLate last year, Research In Motion Ltd. chief executive officer Thorsten Heins sat down with the board of directors at the company’s Waterloo, Ont., headquarters to review plans for the launch of a new phone designed to turn around the company’s fortunes.His weapon was the BlackBerry Z10, a slim device with the kind of glass touchscreen that had made Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. the dominant names in the global smartphone market.But one of RIM’s directors was frustrated by what he saw, and spoke out, according to one person who was in the room. There is a cultural problem at RIM, he told the group, and the Z10 was a glaring manifestation of it.The speaker was none other than Michael Lazaridis, the genius behind the BlackBerry, the company’s co-founder and its former co-CEO. Minutes earlier, he said, he had spoken with Mr. Heins’s newest executive recruits, chief marketing officer Frank Boulben and chief operating officer Kristian Tear.Mr. Boulben and Mr. Tear had dismissively told Mr. Lazaridis that the market for keyboard-equipped mobile phones – RIM’s signature offering – was dead.In the board meeting, Mr. Lazaridis pointed to a BlackBerry with a keyboard. “I get this,” he said. “It’s clearly differentiated.” Then he pointed to a touchscreen phone. “I don’t get this.”To turn away from a product that had always done well with corporate customers, and focus on selling yet another all-touch smartphone in a market crowded with them, was a huge mistake, Mr. Lazaridis warned his fellow directors. Some of them agreed.The boardroom confrontation was a telling moment in the downfall of Research In Motion.Once the giant of the smartphone business, RIM, which was renamed BlackBerry Ltd. in the summer, is now on its knees. The company reported a $965-million (U.S.) fiscal second-quarter loss Friday, primarily because of a massive writedown of Z10 phones that sit, unsold and unwanted, about eight months after they first hit the market. The company is cutting 4,500 jobs, 40 per cent of its work force, in a desperate bid to bring costs in line with plummeting revenue.Investors, who have lived through the destruction of more than $75-billion of the company’s market value over the past five years, are still wondering how BlackBerry managed to blow its runaway lead and became a bit player in the smartphone market it invented.An investigation by The Globe and Mail, which included interviews with two dozen past and present company insiders, exposes a series of deep rifts at the executive and boardroom levels.Those divisions hurt the company’s ability to develop products just as it faced its greatest challenge from more nimble and creative rivals – and contributed to the downfall of Canada’s biggest technology company.Once a fast-moving innovator that kept two steps ahead of the competition, RIM grew into a stumbling corporation, blinded by its own success and unable to replicate it. Several years ago, it owned the smartphone world: Even U.S. President Barack Obama was a BlackBerry addict. But after new rivals redefined the market, RIM responded with a string of devices that were late to market, missed the mark with consumers, and opened dangerous fault lines across the organization.Months before their boardroom showdown, Mr. Heins and Mr. Lazaridis found themselves in another strategic standoff in which they were pitted against Jim Balsillie, Mr. Lazaridis’s long-time business partner and co-CEO.Inside RIM, the brash Mr. Balsillie had championed a bold strategy to re-establish the company’s place at the forefront of mobile communications. The plan was to push wireless carriers to adopt RIM’s popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging service as a replacement for their short text messaging system (SMS) applications – no matter what kind of phone their customers used.It was a novel plan. If RIM could get BBM onto hundreds of millions of non-BlackBerry phones, and charge fees for it, the company would have an enormous new source of profit, Mr. Balsillie believed. “It was a really big idea,” said an employee who was involved in the project.But the plan ran into stiff opposition at senior levels. Not long after Mr. Heins took over as RIM’s CEO in January, 2012, he killed it, with Mr. Lazaridis’s support.That was it for Mr. Balsillie. Weeks later, he resigned from the board and cut his ties to the company.“My reason for leaving the RIM board in March, 2012, was due to the company’s decision to cancel the BBM cross-platform strategy,” Mr. Balsillie said in a brief statement to The Globe and Mail, his first public comments on his departure. He declined a request for an interview.Mr. Lazaridis, who declined to speak about board matters, resigned as a director this past March after delaying his retirement by a year at the board's request.Now, BlackBerry’s future is in doubt. This week, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., a Toronto-based investment company, announced a plan to lead a $4.7-billion takeover of the company. The offer is conditional, and requires a group of so-far uncommitted institutional investors to back Fairfax and provide financing.The company’s near-collapse is a painful situation for Mr. Lazaridis, a gifted engineer who co-founded RIM in a tiny Waterloo office above a bagel shop in 1984.“It’s really hurting me,” he said in an interview. “I can’t imagine what the employees must be thinking. Everyone is talking about the most likely scenario being that it will be broken up and sold off for parts. What will happen to the Waterloo region, or Canada? What company will take its place?”Competition risingMike Lazaridis was at home on his treadmill and watching television when he first saw the Apple iPhone in early 2007. There were a few things he didn’t understand about the product. So, that summer, he pried one open to look inside and was shocked. It was like Apple had stuffed a Mac computer into a cellphone, he thought.To Mr. Lazaridis, a life-long tinkerer who had built an oscilloscope and computer while in high school, the iPhone was a device that broke all the rules. The operating system alone took up 700 megabytes of memory, and the device used two processors. The entire BlackBerry ran on one processor and used 32 MB. Unlike the BlackBerry, the iPhone had a fully Internet-capable browser. That meant it would strain the networks of wireless companies like AT&T Inc., something those carriers hadn’t previously allowed. RIM by contrast used a rudimentary browser that limited data usage.“I said, ‘How did they get AT&T to allow [that]?’ Mr. Lazaridis recalled in the interview at his Waterloo office. “ ‘It’s going to collapse the network.’ And in fact, some time later it did.”Publicly, Mr. Lazaridis and Mr. Balsillie belittled the iPhone and its shortcomings, including its short battery life, weaker security and initial lack of e-mail. That earned them a reputation for being cocky and, eventually, out of touch. “That’s marketing,” Mr. Lazaridis explained. “You position your strengths against their weaknesses.”Internally, he had a very different message. “If that thing catches on, we’re competing with a Mac, not a Nokia,” he recalled telling his staff.RIM soon earned a chance to show up its new rival. RIM’s early smartphones had been a hit for Verizon Wireless, one of the biggest U.S. wireless players. Frozen out of the iPhone – Apple had signed an exclusive deal with AT&T – Verizon executives approached RIM in June, 2007, and asked if it could develop “an iPhone killer.” The product would need to have a touchscreen with no physical keyboard. Verizon would back the U.S. launch with a massive marketing campaign.RIM executives jumped at the chance. At one management meeting, Mr. Balsillie called it RIM’s most important strategic opportunity since the launch of its two-way e-mail pager.The product was the BlackBerry Storm. It was the most complex and ambitious project the company had ever done, but “the technology was cobbled together quickly and wasn’t quite ready,” said one former senior company insider who was involved in the project.The product was months late, hitting the market just before U.S. Thanksgiving in 2008. Many customers hated it. The touchscreen, RIM’s first, was awkward to manipulate. The product ran on a single processor and was slow and buggy. Mr. Balsillie put on a brave face, declaring the launch to be “an overwhelming success,” but sales lagged the iPhone and customer returns were high.The Storm campaign didn’t seem so disastrous at the time: RIM was in the midst of a torrid global expansion. In August, 2009, Fortune crowned it the world’s fastest-growing company. A year after the Storm launch, market research firm comScore reported that four of the top five smartphones U.S. customers intended to buy in the next three months were BlackBerrys.But the Storm had failed to give Verizon Wireless the Apple-killer it coveted, and RIM soon abandoned the product. So the carrier turned to Google Inc. and its new operating system, Android, and built a massive marketing campaign around Motorola’s Droid phone in 2009 – at the expense of marketing dollars to support BlackBerry products. Verizon’s “iDon’t” campaign highlighted all the shortcomings of the iPhone that Android addressed with its consumer-friendly user interface.Rather than hurt Apple, the Droid and other Android-powered phones began to steal share first from Palm and Microsoft, and then RIM. By December, 2010, Android’s market share in the U.S. had grown to 23.5 per cent from 5.2 per cent a year earlier, as RIM’s dropped by 10 points, to 31.6 per cent, according to comScore. By late 2011, Android commanded 47.3 per cent of the U.S. market, while RIM had just 16 per cent.A shift by smartphone usersThis post-iPhone period was an era of strategic confusion for RIM. The overall state of the industry “was a bit schizophrenic,” said Patrick Spence, RIM’s former executive vice-president of global sales, who left in 2012. “There was a time when the [wireless] carriers tried to keep data usage predictable. Then it shifted to a period of trying to drive much more usage in different packages, when the iPhone became compelling.”If there were new rules of the game, RIM would require new tools. The summer after the Storm launched, Mr. Lazaridis bought Torch Mobile, a software development firm that created Internet browsers for mobile phones.But the process of moving, or “porting,” the Torch browser onto RIM’s highly-customized system proved complex and time-consuming. RIM’s technology was based on Java computer code and an operating system built in the 1990s, while the Apple and Android systems used newer software platforms and standards that made it easier to build friendlier user interfaces. “This really meant we were not positioned for the future,” Mr. Lazaridis said. In order to survive, RIM would have to change its DNA.RIM executives figured they had time to reinvent the company. For years they had successfully fended off a host of challengers. Apple’s aggressive negotiating tactics had alienated many carriers, and the iPhone didn’t seem like a threat to RIM’s most loyal base of customers – businesses and governments. They would sustain RIM while it fixed its technology issues.But smartphone users were rapidly shifting their focus to software applications, rather than choosing devices based solely on hardware. RIM found it difficult to make the transition, said Neeraj Monga, director of research with Veritas Investment Research Corp. The company’s engineering culture had served it well when it delivered efficient, low-power devices to enterprise customers. But features that suited corporate chief information officers weren’t what appealed to the general public.“The problem wasn’t that we stopped listening to customers,” said one former RIM insider. “We believed we knew better what customers needed long term than they did. Consumers would say, ‘I want a faster browser.’ We might say, ‘You might think you want a faster browser, but you don’t want to pay overage on your bill.’ ‘Well, I want a super big very responsive touchscreen.’ ‘Well, you might think you want that, but you don’t want your phone to die at 2 p.m.’ “We would say, ‘We know better, and they’ll eventually figure it out.’ ”Trying to satisfy its two sets of customers – consumers and corporate users – could leave the company satisfying neither. When RIM executives showed off plans to add camera, game and music applications to its products to several hundred Fortune 500 chief information officers at a company event in Orlando in 2010, they weren’t prepared for the backlash that followed. Large corporate customers didn’t want personal applications on corporate phones, said a former RIM executive who attended the session.Meanwhile, it turned out consumers didn’t care so much about battery life or security features. They wanted apps. Apple’s iOs and Google’s Android systems were relatively easy for outside software developers to use, compared to BlackBerry’s technically complicated Java-based system.Blackberry’s apps looked “uglier” than those programmed in more modern languages, and the simulator used to test the apps often didn’t recreate the actual experience, said Trevor Nimegeers, a Calgary-based entrepreneur whose software company, Wmode, has developed apps for BlackBerry. Further, RIM exerted tight control over developers before it would sign off on their apps for use on BlackBerrys, stifling creativity. “Developers wanted to be embraced, not controlled,” Mr. Nimegeers said. As a result, hot apps such as Instagram and Tumblr bypassed BlackBerry.A split companyOne key to RIM’s early success was its corporate structure. It is unusual for a company to have two CEOs – Mr. Lazaridis focused on engineering, product management and supply chain, while Mr. Balsillie looked after sales, finance and other corporate functions – but for a long time, it worked. Mr. Lazaridis’s side of the shop made the phones, and Mr. Balsillie’s sold them. The two men were collegial and collaborative.Below the top executives, however, the two sides of the company didn’t always get along. And as the company grew into a leviathan with $20-billion in annual sales, the structure sometimes made it difficult to get definitive decisions or establish clear accountability. That contributed to a chronic problem for RIM: speed. “They were always slow to market, and there were always delays in launching,” said James Moorman, an analyst with S&P Capital IQ Equity Research. “It was compounded by miscalculating the speed at which the consumer market changed.”Sometimes, feedback from customers that might inspire changes would die at middle management, because senior executives didn’t want to bring it to Mr. Lazaridis, a former insider said.The split company also lost a major unifying force when chief operating officer Larry Conlee retired in 2009. Mr. Conlee was a whip-cracker who held executives to account for decisions and deadlines, establishing a project management office. Many insiders agreed that after he left, a slack attitude toward hitting targets began to permeate the company. “There was a gap” after Mr. Conlee’s departure, Adam Belsher, a former RIM vice-president, told The Globe last year. “There was no real operational executive on the product side that would really get teams to hit deadlines.”After relying on its own technology for so long, Mr. Lazaridis decided the company’s next advance would come from outside. In April, 2010, RIM announced a deal to acquire Ottawa-based QNX Software, a cutting-edge software maker that would provide the building blocks for the BlackBerry 10 operating system – the new platform Mr. Lazaridis knew the company needed.QNX was a specialist in industrial controls that used up-to-date software tools to run applications ranging from 911 call centres to wireless broadband services in vehicles. Its technology was the perfect core for smartphones and tablets, RIM’s leaders felt.Mr. Lazaridis decided to take a page from the business strategy book The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. The book outlines how established organizations that succeeded against challengers often did so by allowing small, cloistered teams to develop their own disruptive products, free from the influence of the rest of the organization.Mr. Lazaridis decided he would isolate the QNX team and get them to focus solely on the new operating system, while leaving existing programmers to work on products for its existing platform, BlackBerry 7. Eventually he hoped QNX, led by its CEO Dan Dodge, would retrain his entire organization.But first, RIM had to answer a key question: If it wanted to remake the BlackBerry on the QNX system, what was the best way to do that? Should it move over some of its old Java-based applications, or rewrite them all from scratch? If the company abandoned Java altogether, what would it mean for third-party developers who used it?These were not easy decisions. Discussions among the senior leaders in Mr. Lazaridis’ organization dragged on for a year – far too long, according to several insiders.Eventually, the decision was made: BlackBerry 10 would be built from scratch. The problem with that approach was that a new team was being entrusted to recreate the BlackBerry. Those who had created the original system were still working on devices for the BlackBerry 7 platform. Once again, the company was split.“We had bought a powerful operating system and needed to move to it. But the BB7 was late,” Mr. Lazaridis said. “Every week, I was getting requests for more hires, more resources. The conundrum was, how do I pull resources off the BB7 to rewrite all the apps on top of QNX?”PlayBook painThe QNX team’s first assignment was to work on an operating system for the PlayBook, RIM’s answer to Apple’s successful iPad tablet. Mr. Lazaridis saw the work as a precursor to the BlackBerry 10 line of smartphones and was impressed by what the team brought to the product. “It helped our developers experience the power and elegance of QNX,” he said.But the QNX team was overwhelmed and needed to draw heavily on the company’s other resources to complete the PlayBook. Similar issues arose later on the BlackBerry 10. The tablet, originally slated to come out in the fall of 2010, didn’t appear until April, 2011, and it failed to sell. It was an awkward accessory to RIM’s smartphones, and lacked e-mail, contacts and apps. Once again, RIM had missed the mark: Tablets that sold well worked as standalone devices, which the PlayBook wasn’t.Some questioned the wisdom of launching the PlayBook in the first place, feeling it was a needless and costly distraction. And the decision to isolate QNX also created tensions and morale problems: Those who weren’t on the team worried about their future.“To me, the most logical thing would have been to integrate the operating system organizations into one,” said one senior executive who was caught up in the fray. “Then you’d have a whole team, not 150 people sitting around saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do next,’ and another 150 people saying ‘I’m over my head.’ ”Meanwhile, RIM’s lack of an advanced smartphone meant that it continued to bleed market share to Apple and Android, especially in the United States. In December, 2010, Verizon Wireless announced it would invest in fourth generation (4G) LTE technology to accommodate the growing demands of customers who wanted to surf the Internet on their phones. It signalled to device makers that it would look to feature 4G smartphones in its marketing.RIM’s 4G phone effort was the BlackBerry 10, but it was far from ready. RIM executives tried to make an engineering argument to carriers that 4G technology was no more efficient than 3G, and that its Bold phones were just fine. Mr. Lazaridis, Mr. Heins and chief technology officer David Yach “were trying to reshape the argument because they knew our products couldn’t go there,” a former executive said. “It was a fight to stay in [promotional] programs with carriers. We lost channel support and feature ads.”The PlayBook debacle and mounting delays of the BlackBerry 10 harmed the organization in other ways.For years, Mr. Yach and Mr. Lazaridis had enjoyed a close working relationship. But as the well-regarded Mr. Yach began to question the company’s ability to hit deadlines on products, his views were dismissed and he was made to feel he wasn’t a team player, damaging their relationship, observers said. He left the company in early 2012.The PlayBook flop merely added to the sense of a company in decline; 2011 became a signNow turning point for RIM. As it became clear the brand was getting trounced in the market, and the BlackBerry 10 project was hit by signNow delays, the stock plunged, falling from $69 (Canadian) in February to less than $15 by the year’s end.The pressure mounted on Mr. Balsillie, Mr. Lazaridis and the board. In January, 2012, they stepped aside as co-CEOs and handed it over to Thorsten Heins, a German executive who had run the company’s handset division.Almost immediately, there was division about how to roll out the BlackBerry 10. The original strategy had called for the company to launch an all-touchscreen version first, because sales were still going well for the company’s BlackBerry 7 keyboard phone.But by 2012, sales of BlackBerry 7 phones had lost steam, and Mr. Lazaridis, now deputy chairman, felt the company should switch its priority to getting a keyboard version out, to meet the demand from BlackBerry die-hards.“This is our bread and butter, our iconic device,” he told an executive at the company. “The keyboard is one of the reasons they buy BlackBerrys.”Mr. Heins’s new management team held firm, sources close to the board said. “They believed everything was going to full touch” and that the QNX-designed system was clearly superior to what was available on other mobile operating systems.To Mr. Lazaridis, abandoning the company’s competitive advantage in the hopes consumers would embrace yet another touchscreen was too risky a strategy, setting up the showdown at the board last year. In the end, management agreed to continue developing the Q10 keyboard phone. But the all-touchscreen Z10 would be launched first.By the time the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones were unveiled in January of this year, market observers generally agreed that the products were two years too late – a view widely shared among many senior RIM insiders.“Buying QNX was the right play ultimately,” said Mr. Spence. “But we didn’t make the turn fast enough. Everyone underestimated the complexity” involved in building the new system.A BBM planFor 20 years, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis operated in tandem, building an increasingly successful partnership that allowed each other’s strengths to flourish.They shared an office in their early years, even possessing each other’s voice mail passwords.As RIM grew, they worked in separate buildings but spoke several times a day. “They had a relationship I wish I had with my wife,” one mid-level executive said.But they had different personalities and their lives seldom intersected outside the office. They have barely spoken since leaving the company.For Mr. Lazaridis, science was both a job and a pastime. Mr. Balsillie was brash, competitive and athletic, and wore his reputation for being aggressive, even bullying in meetings, as a badge of honour. If anything, he viewed that outward toughness as a job requirement, not unlike tech CEOs such as Steve Ballmer at Microsoft Corp. or Apple’s Steve Jobs. “Show me how else you build a $20-billion company,” he once confided to a colleague. “If I was Mr. Easy-going, they would kill BlackBerry.”The two rarely disagreed on key strategic moves – until their last year together. Mr. Lazaridis believed BlackBerry 10 would herald RIM’s renaissance. Mr. Balsillie wasn’t so sure.Mr. Balsillie was concerned that Google had commoditized the smartphone market by making its Android operating system available for free to any handset maker. By 2011, wireless carriers were warning him that they would be ordering fewer BlackBerry products unless he dropped his prices to match rival manufacturers.So Mr. Balsillie pushed an alternative plan.The idea started with Aaron Brown, the executive who oversaw the services division at RIM. By 2010, this division was earning $800-million per quarter in revenue from the monthly service access fee it charged mobile carriers for every BlackBerry subscriber. More than 90 per cent of that was profit. Carriers tried to chip away at those fees – Google and Apple didn’t charge them – but RIM always pushed back. Mr. Balsillie was particularly insistent on keeping the service fees. But the executives knew the company’s weakening position in devices would increase pressure on services revenues as well.Even after its terrible year in 2011, RIM still had several advantages, including close relationships with the world’s major carriers. It also had BlackBerry Messenger.RIM developers created the BBM app in 2005 to enable users to communicate not by e-mail but by using their devices’ “personal identification numbers” or PINs. It was the first instant messaging service built for wireless devices, and it caught on quickly. It was reliable, free, always on and users could send as many messages as they wanted at no extra cost, unlike basic text messages. PINs were random codes, not phone numbers or e-mail addresses, enhancing privacy. That made BBM extremely popular in countries where citizens didn’t enjoy as many freedoms as Western democracies, and helped drive handset sales there.BBM’s developers added a few clever elements that also made it addictive. For example, users would know when a message had been delivered and when it had been read, marked D and R. Today there are 60 million monthly active users.But BBM only worked on BlackBerrys. As Apple and Android took off, BBM knock-offs appeared that could function on those devices, including Kik Interactive Inc., founded by Ted Livingston, a former RIM co-op student. Today Kik, boasts 85 million users, more than BlackBerry (which sued Mr. Livingston for allegedly copying its program). Others, such as WhatsApp, are even larger. Instant messaging “is the killer app of the mobile era,” Mr. Livingston said. “We think there will be a Google or Facebook-sized company that comes out of this category.”RIM’s Mr. Brown believed he could tap into this unfolding trend. While working with Mr. Balsillie on other projects, around late 2010 and early 2011, he began to talk up the concept of offering BBM on other mobile platforms.Mr. Balsillie loved it. At the time, some carriers were pushing for rebates on their monthly service fees. Mr. Brown was willing to comply if the carriers would agree to open new parts of their business to RIM. He and Mr. Balsillie struck upon an idea: Why not give carriers the opportunity to offer BBM to all their customers – no matter what devices they used?Most wireless executives were not fans of instant messaging services and other “over-the-top” apps such as Skype because they eroded the carriers’ revenue from text messaging.To counter that threat, carriers banded together to develop a standardized “rich communication service” (RCS) platform that would enable their customers to exchange text messages, videos, games and other digital information. But the initiative has gained little traction; one commentator recently labelled RCS a “zombie technology.”SMS 2.0Mr. Balsillie began floating the idea that carriers could instead offer BBM as their own enhanced version of text messaging, generating revenue for carriers while providing a cut for RIM. He called it “SMS 2.0.” (SMS stands for “short message service.”) RIM would agree to reduce the fees it charged for services, in exchange for gaining access to hundreds of millions of non-BlackBerry users.He and Mr. Brown discussed several options. For example, carriers could offer BBM as part of a standard “talk and text” plan for entry-level smartphone users. Because of its extra functions, BBM would save customers from having to buy a data plan.Or, carriers could offer an expensive plan that included BBM and other offerings from BlackBerry, including one gigabyte of cloud storage on which they could keep photos or songs. The carriers could then sell extra services such as radio through BBM. It would also make the wireless companies’ customers “stickier” – less likely to defect – since they couldn’t move stored data to rival mobile carriers as easily.The SMS 2.0 plan was a throwback to RIM’s move a decade earlier to form partnerships with mobile providers and share revenues. It was a chance to make BBM the dominant chat messaging service, and would have created a new storyfor the BlackBerry brand.A few carriers responded positively to Mr. Balsillie’s initial entreaties and by mid-2011, he was calling SMS 2.0 the company’s top strategic priority.To round out the strategy, and build a suite of cross-platform services, RIM made a few acquisitions, such as instant messaging firm LiveProfile. The service had about 15 million users and worked on Apple and Android devices, giving BBM the entrée it needed to those platforms.But the plan deeply divided the company. BBM was still an important driver of BlackBerry sales. Making it widely available to competitors represented an added threat to RIM’s faltering handset business, led by Mr. Heins at the time. Many inside the company felt a cross-platform BBM made sense, but only when BlackBerry 10 was out. Mr. Balsillie and proponents of his plan felt that would be too late.“It’s fair to say [the risk to handset sales] was a shared concern of everybody I spoke to,” said former RIM executive Mr. Spence. “But it was hard to deny the fact [carriers’ text messaging] revenue was declining. These carriers were looking for a solution and this was a potential solution.”One former executive felt Mr. Balsillie was overestimating the revenue potential of his software-driven strategy. As Mr. Balsillie talked up SMS 2.0, Mr. Heins and his team increasingly cast doubt on it internally. “He was absolutely canvassing behind the scenes working to kill it,” said one company insider.As for Mr. Lazaridis, he was supportive of launching BBM for rival operating systems, but was concerned about the costs and risks involved in building out the SMS 2.0 strategy, said a source close to the board. “We weren’t in a position to be investing in free services that required massive capital expenditure [and could provide] zero payback for maybe a few years if we’re successful,” the source said. Like others, Mr. Lazaridis worried about handset sales.But Mr. Balsillie was increasingly convinced that SMS 2.0 was the way to go. After pitching the plan to CEOs of 12 of the largest wireless carriers in the world in late 2011, he believed he could sign up at least one major U.S. carrier – insiders say AT&T was interested – as well as Telefonica and one or two other European carriers. That’s all it would take, he felt, to convince others to adopt BBM en masse.But other RIM executives who were part of the growing SMS 2.0 team also encountered resistance.Mr. Balsillie was pushing to formally launch SMS 2.0 at an industry conference at the end of February, 2013. But with the company under mounting pressure to overhaul its top leadership, he and Mr. Lazaridis handed the reins to Mr. Heins in late January.A few weeks later, Mr. Heins killed the SMS 2.0 strategy, backed by Mr. Lazaridis.“We had to get the BlackBerry 10 out, and we couldn’t be distracted,” said a source close to the board. “Everything else was shelved. And if that meant getting rid of strategies that didn’t fit, or weren’t complete, or required resources, I think [Mr. Heins] did the right thing.”The Globe and Mail requested interviews with Mr. Heins and with Barbara Stymiest, the chair of the board. The company declined, but agreed to agreed to provide answers to written questions.Asked why he shelved SMS 2.0, Mr. Heins said in an e-mailed response: “There are so many [instant messaging] alternatives in the marketplace that we wanted to be careful to launch only when we felt we could clearly differentiate our offering.”Mr. Balsillie, no longer an executive but still a board member, urged directors to reconsider, but they backed the new CEO. Mr. Balsillie couldn’t abide by the decision. He resigned from the board in late March, then sold all his stock. Few people knew the reason for his departure, including his long-time co-CEO, Mr. Lazaridis.BlackBerry did launch a version of its BBM application last weekend for iPhones and Android devices, but simply as a stand-alone app. Andrew Bocking, the executive who oversees BBM, said that with built-in capabilities to have group chats, share photos, calendar items and other features, “it really takes BBM to a whole other level … I believe there is an opportunity for a dominant player in instant messaging and there will be one winner-take-all.”To those who championed the SMS 2.0 strategy, most of them now gone, RIM should have been well on its way there already.A fizzled launchFinally, close to six years after Apple unveiled the iPhone, the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 made its debut at a glitzy launch event in January, featuring singer Alicia Keys as the company’s “global creative director.” It was a minor detail in a much larger story, but the made-up title and meaningless job irked some who wondered why the company was distracting itself with celebrity endorsements while in the fight of its life.The Z10 device itself won a number of positive reviews. The New York Times’ David Pogue, who previously had predicted that the BlackBerry was doomed, began his review: “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” But eight months later, it’s hard to see the launch as anything other than a total business failure, given the sheer volume of unsold smartphones now written off.The marketing campaign was confusing and vague: An ad that ran during the Super Bowl failed to explain what made the product distinct. A source close to the board said directors weren’t shown the ad before it ran, and some didn’t understand the content or the slogan, “Keep Moving.” There were no lineups, and no buzz for the product – nothing like the frenzy of publicity that seems to surround the launch of each new version of the iPhone.Once again, the market had shifted, and there was little demand for the Z10 in an era where sophisticated operating systems were commonplace and phones were getting cheaper. The one advantage the BlackBerry may have had over its rivals – a physical keyboard – wasn’t present in the first model to hit the market.“The only people still clamouring for a new smartphone from BlackBerry were in it for the keyboard,” said S&P’s Mr. Moorman. “Then they come out with a touchscreen. Anyone who wanted a touchscreen was already gone.”As it turns out, both Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis were proven right. It was hard enough to compete in a commoditizing smartphone market. Leading with the wrong product on top of that only made BlackBerry’s task more hopeless. Mr. Heins’s strategic errors only compounded the challenging situation he had inherited.The product was difficult to sell for other reasons. One company insider said it could take close to an hour for young sales staff to demonstrate the product in dealer stores.And many long-time BlackBerry users found that the new system was too different from the classic BlackBerry experience for their liking. Many of the little “moments of delight,” as they are called in the company, were forgotten or overlooked by the QNX developers who lacked ties to the company’s past. For example, users can’t hit “u” and look at the last unread message in their inbox, nor can they easily shift to the next or previous e-mail, as they could on older BlackBerrys. Pocket-dialling is a constant hazard.Meanwhile, the company was slow to provide service to business users – such as helping them to transfer applications they had written for the old BlackBerry system. Software developers were left with dead-end investments after learning they would have to rewrite their apps for the new system if they wanted to remain part of the BlackBerry world. Many simply didn’t bother.“The decisions we made over the last two years were made within the context of a volatile, competitive and ever-changing marketplace – and always with the goal of delivering the vital technology that our customers need,” Mr. Heins said in a written response to questions about the success of the BlackBerry 10 launch. While he called the launch “a signNow accomplishment and one that involved the reinvention of our company,” he acknowledged it “did not meet our expectations.”As for Mr. Lazaridis, he has not given up on the enterprise he founded 29 years ago.He is still a minority shareholder in BlackBerry, and continues to be the subject of rumours he may join a group to buy out his former company.Mr. Lazaridis declined to discuss any such plans, but it is clear he believes the BlackBerry story is not over.“Many companies go through cycles. Intel experienced it, IBM experienced it, Apple experienced it. Our job was to reinvent ourselves, which we all believed BB10 would do,” he said.“The fact that a Canadian company was able to compete in that space with two of the largest tech companies in the world is a big deal. People counted IBM, Apple and other companies out only to be proven wrong. I am rooting that they are wrong on BlackBerry as well.”
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