E-mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy
Make the most out of your eSignature workflows with airSlate SignNow
Extensive suite of eSignature tools
Robust integration and API capabilities
Advanced security and compliance
Various collaboration tools
Enjoyable and stress-free signing experience
Extensive support
How Do I Set Up eSignature in Egnyte
Keep your eSignature workflows on track
Our user reviews speak for themselves
E-mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy. Explore the most end user-pleasant knowledge about airSlate SignNow. Handle your complete papers handling and discussing process digitally. Range from portable, pieces of paper-based and erroneous workflows to computerized, computerized and faultless. It is simple to generate, supply and sign any files on any product everywhere. Make sure that your essential company cases don't slip overboard.
Discover how to E-mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy. Adhere to the basic guide to get going:
- Create your airSlate SignNow account in clicks or log in along with your Facebook or Google accounts.
- Enjoy the 30-day time free trial offer or go with a costs prepare that's great for you.
- Discover any lawful web template, create online fillable types and reveal them securely.
- Use superior capabilities to E-mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy.
- Signal, personalize signing purchase and gather in-individual signatures 10 times faster.
- Set up auto alerts and acquire notices at every phase.
Moving your tasks into airSlate SignNow is simple. What practices is a simple process to E-mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy, in addition to suggestions to help keep your fellow workers and companions for greater collaboration. Inspire your employees with all the very best instruments to keep in addition to organization processes. Improve productiveness and scale your company speedier.
How it works
Rate your experience
-
Best ROI. Our customers achieve an average 7x ROI within the first six months.
-
Scales with your use cases. From SMBs to mid-market, airSlate SignNow delivers results for businesses of all sizes.
-
Intuitive UI and API. Sign and send documents from your apps in minutes.
A smarter way to work: —how to industry sign banking integrate
FAQs
-
What industries must use electronic signature software?
Any industry involving a large amount of paperwork make use electronic signatures. In other words, all industries make use of electronic signatures because all of them have piles of paperwork to handle. Some examples of such industries include financial, life science, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.Industries such as the pharmaceutical industry, have a number of licenses and other paperwork that they have to handle and keep track of. It can be a tedious task to perform such cumbersome paper processes. Therefore, e-signatures can facilitate an organisation in keeping a track of all this paperwork, by signing electronically.Healthcare industries usually involve time-sensitive documents, which need to be urgently completed. But, it can take days in case of the traditional wet ink paper signatures for the documents to signNow the signer and back, if the parties are geographically scattered. But with electronic signatures, that is not the case. Geographical barriers do not play a role. Documents which earlier needed days to be completed, can now be signed and sent back within minutes, in the click of a button. Furthermore, it takes a long time to bring assets under management. The time taken by the signing process, if wet ink paper signatures are used, may even further delay the process. But by using electronic signatures, the whole process can speed up.Apart from these, there are many paper prone industries which require huge amount of paperwork and with the use of electronic signatures they can make their everyday processes smoother and more efficient.
-
Why isn't the legal system willing to accept "I never received a notice," as a valid excuse? Why don't they simply mail the impo
When “I never received notice” isn’t a valid excuse, it is because too many people will, frankly, lie about this. People also make affirmative efforts to evade service. And sometimes people decide to just up and move without bothering to tell anyone. Shocking, I know.Thus, formal rules about service make it easy to determine whether service was done properly, and a party claiming lack of notice despite compliance with the rules will be required to prove the likelihood of actual lack of notice before the excuse will be even considered. On the other hand, if the party purportedly giving notice did not comply with the rules, the notice won’t be presumed to be valid without either an acknowledgment or waiver by the defendant.There are two different categories of notices—initial process and subsequent notice.For initial process, the court must obtain jurisdiction over the defendant. Traditionally this was done by personal service within the court’s territorial jurisdiction—the defendant needed to be “tagged.” This tagging was done by the sheriff (or a deputy), an agent of the court itself. If the defendant never showed up in the jurisdiction, the case could not proceed.¹More modern concepts of personal jurisdiction do not place as much emphasis on presence within the place; as any American law student will know, the case of International Shoe Co. v. State of Washington² established that personal jurisdiction could be asserted beyond a State’s boundaries if “minimum contacts” existed and “fair play” suggests that haling a foreign defendant to answer an in-state complaint would be reasonable.Of course, personal service by the state’s sheriff isn’t possible in such a case, and so most states do permit alternative forms of service as a matter of course (sometimes those alternative methods are available domestically as well). The exact requirements may vary by type of case and in any event will be spelled out in local rules of civil procedure; for proper advice you will want to consult a lawyer in the place where the action is. But generally, when initial process is involved, some form of service that leaves no doubt about the service, and the verification of some third party—the sheriff, the Post Office, a process server, &c—is required (the plaintiff in propria persona is not usually allowed to do initial personal service as they have as much motivation to lie about it as does the defendant). That might be personal service by a disinterested adult, another jurisdiction’s deputized sheriff, or service by certified mail.³ This means that someone is in a position to submit proof of the service to the court. (A defendant may also acknowledge service or waive⁴ any defects in service.)Now, for subsequent service, the rules tend to be a bit different. Once a party has been tagged and haled into court, they have a responsibility to themself and to the court to appear and present whatever defence they have to the action. Parties are, of course, entitled to notice of things that happen in the case—ex parte and sealed proceedings are extremely limited. But, at this point, because being party to a suit involves this responsibility, part of it is to keep the court and the other parties apprised of a proper address where notices may be served with a minimum of fuss (and to notify the court if that changes). Usually this is a mailing address and service is made by ordinary mail—which doesn’t require a signature and thus is less hassle for everyone—but in some cases service by e-mail, facsimile transmission, and the like may be agreed to (in the case of electronic case filing systems, e-mail service will likely be mandated as a condition of ECF use). Personal service is still permitted as a method of serving these subsequent papers, but not required. Again as to specific methods of service, you need to consult your local rules of procedure and the local attorney previously suggested.And so, a movant or the court will not be expected to make extraordinary efforts to provide “actual notice” of every single piece of paper by certified mail or personal service and give the defendant the opportunity to delay the case by evading service of motions. Neither will the court or other parties be required to chase a party around in the event of their moving and not leaving a forwarding address.⁵ Service to the “last known address” is almost universally sufficient. And the court won’t be impressed with “I didn’t get notices” when the lack of such notices is apparently the respondent’s own fault.N.B. This answer may be somewhat generalized for the United States; other legal régimes have their own ideas about notices.Notes:¹ A plaintiff unable to effect service could, of course, attempt to commence the action in another jurisdiction where the defendant could be found.² 326 U.S. 310 (1945). International Shoe is famous for the notion that an out-of-state defendant with “continuous and systematic contacts” to the state would nonetheless be susceptible to being sued there; the rule was further broadened by Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462 (1985), where even contacts that could not even be characterized as “minimum” with Florida were sufficient in the context of specifically making a comprehensive agreement to deal with a corporation legally resident in Florida.³ “Special service” or service not generally provided for by rule may be obtained by order of court only in the event that regular service cannot be obtained. Special service is usually publication. The purpose of special service is to allow the plaintiff to proceed with the action without having it stayed for an unreasonable period of time due to the absence of the defendant. The showing required for special service will vary by jurisdiction and possibly the facts of the case. And a defendant seeking to set aside a judgment obtained in this manner will have a much easier time of it than the defendant seeking to contest normal methods of service.⁴ As the primary purpose of service requirements is “notice to the defendant,” the mere fact that the defendant appears in the action suggests rather strongly that the defendant does in fact know about it. Consequently, a party seeking to challenge the validity of original service must do so at the outset and before making any substantive response to the complaint, otherwise the court will not hear such challenges and they will be deemed waived.⁵ We have this problem rather perennially in support court. I suspect it is a combination of general haplessness on the part of some of our obligors and deliberate efforts to evade our enforcement proceedings, but we get a lot of people who don’t show up at their contempt hearings because they “didn’t get notice.” The court issues bench warrants and most of the individuals are later arrested, and the failure of notice is not regarded as a defense by the court and in fact often leads to an additional contempt for failing to appear or to comply with the language in the support orders requiring parties to notify the court of address changes.
-
How can a startup get its first 1000 borrowers? www.usekaro.com is a hyperlocal renting startup in Bangalore (think "Uber for St
You can use a powerful concept to focus on your most likely early adapters. It’s called Personas.For instance: You want a person to borrow a digicam given that you have one available on your site.So let’s create a fictional persona:Joy, a young professional works in a IT firm. He is planning to visit say leh next week with his friends in March. He earns around 40–50K per month and lives in apartment with 2 of his college friends. He is excited about the trip and hoping one of his friend could get a good quality cam for his upcoming trip.Now look at the highlighted words to focus on your audience:Young - okay with new technology and borrowingGoing Leh - Damn you need a Digicam for that placeSalary - He knows how to maintain this thing but can’t invest in a big cam for a tripMarch - This item will be borrowed more during Holidays.Now what you need to do:Go to any IT company in Delhi, ask people to fill out a small survey to win a free stay in Leh (No flight tickets included).Better post your add on Travel websites.Best - Give them cam for free! Yes free. Just have a small software in it so when the share the pic taken from this free digi cam. In the corner it says ‘Cam by Usekaro’. Let them share the pics with the world and you will have your first 1000 customers.Good Luck!
-
How do I go about registering a startup in India, initially without any co-founders, but making provision for some in the future
Once when you have come up with a great idea and have decided how to register a business company in India, then certainly you must follow some procedures to register your business in India. After deciding regarding registration, naturally there arise many questions like where should you get the application form, what is the process for registration, what is the registration fee, whom should I contact for making my registration successful.To get rid of all the confusion, let we help you make your registration process simple and easy with all necessary details. This article will help you with all the relevant information as a step-by-step procedure for those who have decided to register a business in India or to those who have considering registering a business in India.Before entering into the registration process, you must be aware of some basic information about the country where you are going to register your business in. India is the seventh largest country with the pool of opportunities in the emerging market for the world. Any business in India will likely succeed in their field because, after the Republic of China, India ranks as the second populated country in the world. To make your registration process easy first, you must gather some information about the country namely; their culture, common business trends and the landscape of India. It will help you decide which part of the country you want to and can register your business. The Indian market trend remains as relationship oriented.It is obviously easier for an Indian citizen to register a business in India compared to a foreign country. I am going to list all the official procedures that required for registering a company in India.RELATED POST: LEGALRAASTA RAISES INR 7 CRORE FROM ANGEL INVESTORSLet’s start, what is a company?A company is an association, which is organised and formed to carry out a Business. A company is a legal entity that is classified and should be registered under the company Act 1956. This company Act subdivides the company into two categories called as the private corporation/company and Public company.Let’s Understand What Private Company And Public Company IsWhat is Private Limited CompanyHere are the features of a private limited company as follows:A Private company can have a maximum of 50 members.It restricts to transfer his or her shares to anyone.Should not invite public to subscribe regarding a company share.A private company should have a minimum capital of 1 Lakh Rupees or capital may vary time to time.The private company should only have two board members and may have two directors.Once a private company is incorporated, it can start its business.What is Public Limited CompanyThe characteristic of a public limited company is as follows:There is no limit of members in the public limited company.It can transfer his or her shares to their shareholders.It allows inviting the public to subscribe regarding company shares.The public limited company should have a minimum capital of 5 Lakh Rupees or the capital may vary from time to time.The minimum number of board members required in a public company is seven and must have at least three directors.The company can start its business only after receiving its commencement certificate.Why Should You Register Your Company?The main reasons to register your company are as followsProtectionTransferable ownershipRetirement fundsTaxationRaising funds through sale of stockDurabilityCredit ratingHow To Register A Business Company In IndiaTo register a company in India, it may take the duration of about 15 days to a month and sometimes more than that. Every state has a regional office of the Registrars of the company (ROC) to guide the registration process. On whitedust, we are going to give a step by step procedure to register a company, especially in India.Steps To Register A Company In IndiaStep 1: How To Obtain The DIN (Director Identification Number)First and the first process in registering a company is to acquire a DIN for directors. The government has set new requirement under which directors for an Indian company, in which both an Indian and a Foreigners must register and get a unique identification number. It called as DIN(Director Identification number). The Ministry Of Corporation Affairs (MCA) issues DIN, which is a unique identification number for an existing director or to the person who is intended to become a director of the company. Even if a person severs as a director to many companies only one DIN is allotted to a particular individual. For every director company DIN has been made compulsory according to the Amendment Act 2006.The Ministry Of Corporation Affairs (MCA) identifies the directors of the company by using this DIN. The process takes approximately one or two days with a registration fee of 100INR.Here are the Mandatory Documents required:-Identity ProofPassportDriving licenseVoter IDPAN cardA photograph is a mustAddress ProofRation cardBank statementElectricity BillAlso Read: 10 TIPS FOR STARTING A HOME-BASED FOOD BUSINESSSteps to fill the E- form for obtaining DIN:-Create a login ID with an username and password in the MCA website (mca.gov.in).After creating an account with MCA. Log in to your account and fill the E- Form to generate your DIN.Download the E-form DIN-1 and fill it with the necessary details.Procedure to fill the DIN 1 form:a. Enter the full name of the applicant and make sure not to use abbreviations.b. Enter your father’s name even if the woman is married.c. Select the options whether you are a citizen of India or not.d. Attach the latest photograph of the applicant in the box provided. The full face of the applicant should be clear. It should be in JPEG format.e. Enter the nationality as mentioned in your passport.f. Specify your current occupation and your education qualification.g. Enter your date of birth in the given format (date- month-year).h. Specify your gender by selecting one of the two options.i. Enter your place of birthj. Enter your Pan card number. Once it is entered it will highlight the “Verify income tax PAN details “ button click on it to verify.k. Enter your Voter’s Id number, Passport number and Driving licence number in next fields.l. Enter your permanent address including your city, state, pin code, country, ISO country code, mobile number, E-mail, Fax, telephone number.m. Select one of the two options whether the present and the permanent address is the same. If address differs, please mention it below in the next field.n. Select the relevant check boxes in the Certification field.o. Attach the required documents as referred to in the form.p.Select the appropriate category of the person who has signed your e-form either a Notary public or Gazette Officer of a government.q. Enter the corporate identity number (CIN) of the company with which Secretary is associated with the company and in which the applicant is proposed to be a director. Click the pre-fill button. The system will automatically display the name of the enterprise.r. Check your e-form is successful, required documents are attached, pre-scrutinize your e-form and then submit it.After uploading the DIN 1 form, it will generate the DIN for the director. After generating the DIN one should intimate to their company about DIN by using DIN 2 formDetails to be entered in DIN2 form are listed below:a. In the TO address field enter the company name and the address of the company.b. Enter the datec. Enter your DIN numberd. Enter your namee. Enter your father’s namef. Enter your residential addressg. Enter your email IDh. Enter your designationi. Specify whether chairperson or director or executive directorj. Determine the category, name of the company and date of appointment.k. Enclose a copy of DIN allotment letter.The next process is that the company should intimate regarding the director’s DIN to the Registrar Of Corporates (ROC) through DIN 3 formDetails to be entered in DIN3 form are as follows:a. Enter the Corporate Identity Number (CIN) of the companyb. Click the prefill button by which the system automatically displays the name.c. Enter the address of the company and the e-mail id of the company.d. Enter the authorised capital of the company, some members in the company.e. Enter the paid capital of the company and enter the total number of directors and managing directors of the enterprise.f. Enter the DIN number of the director and click the prefill button.g. Then the system will display the personal details of the director. Enter the date when the intimation received from the Director in Form DIN 2.h. Select the designation and the category of the director like the chairperson, executive or nonexecutive.i. Enter the DIN of the director if you have chosen an alternative director.j. Enter the details of the director like the name of the company, email id and the date of appointment.k. Provide the details of the manager like name, address, e-mail, designation and date of appointment.l. In an optional attachment, you can provide any other information.m. Enter the date in which it has been authorised by the board of directors and submit the form.n. The e-form should be digitally signed by the managing director or manager or director of the company, mention their designation and DIN.o. The certificate should be digitally signed by the company secretary and enter his designation and membership number.p. Check the form by clicking the form check button, if you want to modify anything modify it using modify button. A then upload the filled form.q. If you want to update your personal details or change of address or any change in DIN, then director should intimate the change by submitting the e-form DIN 4.This above Image Source: SlideShare.netStep 2: How to Obtain Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)The documents should submit in an electronic format for Digital Signature Certificate. Digital Signature ensures the documents security and authenticity. Indian company Directors is required to get a DSC. The agencies that have been appointed by the Controller Of Certificate (CCA) should authenticate the Digital Signature Certificate. The digital signature validity is within one or two years. Once when it expires, we should renew it. The time taken to complete this process is the minimum of 1 to 6 days. The registration fee may vary from 400 to 2650.Step 3: Reserve the Company name with ROCFirst, you have to decide a unique name to register your company in India and get approved from ROC. The company name registration process starts with filling the application Form 1A which is available at the ROC office of every state. The necessary documents you should provide are the address proof of the company that you have to register, name and signature of one of the directors. So you have to suggest five unique, different names because the ROC staff will search for the availability of company name in India. If your business name that you have suggested is not approved, then you will be given a chance for resubmission of the new panel of names against the fee paid. It may take 2 to 3 days to complete the process and the registration fee is RS 500.Here are the Steps to fill Form 1A:-Select from the two options whether the application is meant for incorporating a new company or changing the name of the existing company.Provide the details of the applicant like his DIN or PAN card number or Passport number. Click the prefill button. Then the system will automatically display the name and the address of the applicant if you have provided your DIN number. If you provide your PAN or Passport number, then you have to fill the details.From the given categories select the type of your company, state whether the company proposed is private or public.Select whether the proposed company has a share capital or not.Enter the state in which the proposed company is to be registered.Enter the name of the office of the registrar of the companies in which the proposed company is to be registered.Enter the number of promoters and details of the promoters like his category, DIN and Name.Suggest six alternative names for the company to be registered. Please give the name in the order of preference.Explain the significance of the proposed name of the company in few words.Enter the primary objects of the proposed company to be included in MOA.Enter the proposed authorised capital.Enter the particulars of 2 directors like their DIN, name, father’s name, nationality, PAN number, and address.Verify it and upload the form.Step 4: Memorandum And Articles Of Association Vetted And PrintedThe Memorandum Of Association contains the information about the company’s main objective. The document should include the information regarding what is the capital amount that you want to raise by issuing shares and the purpose for which the capital will be used on present and future.The Articles Of Association contains the information regarding the then companies daily operation. In the form INC-29 both the Memorandum Of Association and Article Of Association should be attached. With the ROC of vetting, you can file these draughted documents Online. Then print the documents and get signNowd once the ROC approves your MOA and AOA. This process has to be done within six months of the name approval. There is no registration charge.Step 5: The companies documents should be stampedThe companies documents should be stamped either at the superintendent or an authorised bank.has made mandatory to pay all the stamp duties for all the incorporated company forms and documents online via www.mca.gov.in website. The charge may differ from state to state and it may take one day to complete this process.Step 6: Documents Should be SignedEach and every document of Memorandum Of Association and Articles Of Associations should sign by at least two members of the company in their handwriting and one witness should be there for signature. It may take a day to complete the process.Step 7: To Get CertificateThe next step is to get the Certificate Of Incorporation from ROC and MCA. It may take a week or more and the cost may differ depending upon the companies authorised capital. Example: the cost is 4000 firs the company capital of Rs 1 lakh.Step 8: Ensure The LegalityMake a Seal ensure the legitimacy of the companies document. A company should stamp its document with its unique company seal. It may take a day of time to complete the paper and the cost is 350 Rs.Step 9: To Get Pan NumberThe next you should obtain the Permanent Account Number (PAN) from UTI or NSDL. It may cost around 60 to 70 and take 15-20 days to time to complete the process.Step 10: To Obtain Tax NumberObtain the Tax Account Number (TAX) from the income tax. TAN is a ten digit unique ten digit number required for the people who are responsible for deducting tax at a http://source.It may take 15 days of time to obtain TAN and its cost is around 55INR.Step 11: Registration for VATWith the Sales Tax Officer, you must register for VAT. VAT is a Value Added Tax, which requires registration by filling the Form 101. The time duration to complete this process is 12 days and the cost is around Rs.5000 plus its stamp duties of Rs.100Step 12: Registration for Professional TaxNext is to register for Professional Tax from the Profession Tax Officer of the state. Register the employees with provident fund organisation. It may take 2 to 3 days and its free of cost.Step 13: Identified With An Individual RecordEach employee of the company should be identified with an individual record for Medical Insurance Scheme. The employer should register the Form 01 with is sent as per Employees State Insurance. It may take 2 to 3 days of time for issuing the Employer Code Number.Step 14: Government ApprovalThe last step is filling for government approval before RBI/ FIPB for foreigners and NRIs. It may take 15 days to complete the process.If you were having any query regarding registration of your company, then feel free to contact us for all types of help. Our Experts will surely help you to get rid of your problem in a minute.Visit These Websites with Simple Registration:Quick Company indiaeFiling PortalMyOnlineCAMinistry Of Corporate AffairsIndiaFilingsVakilsearchOnline Company IndiaLegalraasta india
-
What are some great tools to use for sales prospecting?
I think that we all agree that the days of manual prospecting are long gone. If you automate your prospecting efforts you can save a lot of time and money, and streamline your whole sales process. But, since there are lots of prospecting tools in the market, it can be hard to figure out which ones are good and which ones you should avoid.I’ll give you a couple of suggestions based on the tools I used.Email Hunter is a decent little program that can extract a list of every single one company email. All you need to enter is a company domain, and you will soon be able to email any person from a company. You can use either its dedicated Chrome plugin, or you can do your search by means of their browser version. This program can come in really handy if you want to find the email of a particular decision maker and get in touch with them directly.HeadsignNow is another interesting tool that offers more options than Email Hunter as it has some advanced search features. This means that you can search prospects based on various criteria such as name, company, title, or website. You can also expect to find your prospects’ social media handles and memorize your search logs.Autoklose isn’t your average prospecting tool, mainly because it offers much more. It’s actually a sales automation platform that can dramatically speed up your sales cycle, and prospecting is just one of the weapons in its arsenal. Apart from automating your prospecting efforts and saving you a tremendous amount of time, Autoklose will make your job and life easier by automating your email marketing efforts, amplifying your follow-ups, providing you with detailed campaign stats and metrics, and streamlining numerous dull, repetitive tasks that have to be done during the sales process.When it comes to prospecting, Autoklose allows you several powerful methods of filling your funnel with quality leads.Upload your own reliable contacts from .CSV files and Autoklose will import the information in the database so that you can make lists according to various parameters, and additionally segment them in order to create customized outsignNow campaigns and improve your open and click-through rates;Connect your Salesforce account and sync the data with Autoklose thus growing your internal database. What’s great about this platform is that it prevents you from sending the same email to the same person twice;Gain access to a huge B2B leads database and find prospects from virtually any industry. I was impressed with the abundance of prospects that I could actually contact. This database is managed by Autoklose’s reliable third-party providers, and it’s absolutely clean and packed with verified, complete, and updated contact information.It’s clear that Autoklose gives you a plenty of prospecting options, and the fact that you can search for your potential customers by using different parameters makes it in a way similar to HeadsignNow, but one of the main and most important differences is that Autoklose provides you with validated data which undergoes a meticulous 50-point data-scrub, meaning that every missing field is filled in, and every email, phone number, address, and job title is checked both manually and through the proprietary technology. To cut the long story short, Autoklose keeps you covered and gives your prospecting a big boost.
-
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.”
Trusted esignature solution— what our customers are saying
Get legally-binding signatures now!
Related searches to E mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy
Frequently asked questions
How do i add an electronic signature to a word document?
How to sign a pdf in paint?
How to sign an online pdf ppc?
Get more for E mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy
- Help Me With Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- How To Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- Can I Electronic signature Mississippi Police Form
- How Can I Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- How Do I Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- Help Me With Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- How Can I Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
- Can I Electronic signature Mississippi Police Document
Find out other E mail Electronic signature Presentation Easy
- Employment or job termination package rhode island form
- Newly widowed individuals package rhode island form
- Employment interview package rhode island form
- Employment employee personnel file package rhode island form
- Assignment of mortgage package rhode island form
- Assignment of lease package rhode island form
- Lease purchase agreements package rhode island form
- Satisfaction cancellation or release of mortgage package rhode island form
- Premarital agreements package rhode island form
- Painting contractor package rhode island form
- Framing contractor package rhode island form
- Foundation contractor package rhode island form
- Plumbing contractor package rhode island form
- Brick mason contractor package rhode island form
- Roofing contractor package rhode island form
- Electrical contractor package rhode island form
- Sheetrock drywall contractor package rhode island form
- Flooring contractor package rhode island form
- Trim carpentry contractor package rhode island form
- Fencing contractor package rhode island form