Barack Obama Blackberry Model

barack obama blackberry model

Research In Motion Company History Timeline

1984 – 1989: Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) is founded by Mike Lazaridis in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Mike was only 23 that time and had recently dropped out of the Univesity of Waterloo where he was studying to become an electrical engineer.

Together with two other friends, he started RIM’s operation with a contract from General Motors of Canada for industrial automation of GM operations. Since then, the company survived from one contract to another. By the late 1980s, RIM had grown to about a dozen employees with sizable sales reaching millions of Canadian dollars.

It got hired by many telecommunications companies to provide research services and find solutions to telecommunication issues, especially that deal with the wireless system  

1990s: Earlier, RIM had a contract with a paging and cellular telephone company that required them to investigate the potential of newer wireless digital network systems. This led to the development and manufacturing of modems which led to the further development of a complete wireless e-mail system in collaboration with the Swedish mobile phone company Ericsson.

These research contracts with the telecommunication giants led to RIM’s developing its own capacities to provide stand alone communication products and become more than just a solutions provider. These provided the impetus for the eventual manufacturing of personal digital assistants which are first pager and later on devices that also include messaging and voice call capabilities called the Blackberry.

In 1999, the Blackberry personal digital assistant was introduced and earned Lazaridis and a co-worker an Academy award for technical achievement. This platform would later on become the popular Blackberry phone.

Also during this period, Lazaridis hired James Balsillie to handle the company’s finances and business development tasks as he went back to where he is most effective, engineering and research. In 1997, the company went public which earned the company sizable profits while raising the capital. Such inflows were used for new and equipment upgrade, sales and marketing pitch and research and development.

2000s: The Blackberry was named Product of the Year and the first Blackberry that is capable of cellphone services, the Blackberry 5810 was launched. It also has an always – on email connectivity that made it very popular among users. And the rest they say is history with Blackberry becoming one of the top smart phones available for the North American Market. In the same year it released the voice capable PDAs, RIM expanded into the European market connecting with UK mobile operators to make available the Blackberries to the public.

From then on, RIM has released various Blackberry models to compete with the other smart phones released by other mobile phone manufacturers and it remains to be RIM’s most popular and saleable product. The always on email service made the units so popular from all segments of the mobile phone – toting population. It benefited from its popularity among celebrities including US President Barack Obama. Such popularity came as a form of free advertisement for the Blackberry.

President Barack Obama on his Blackberry renamed Barackberry -Inauguration Song