Blackberry phones to stop working

Now they say first times are special your first steps your first job even your first love tonight I want to talk about first smartphones for a lot of people it was this one a sleek black frame wide qwerty keyboards and a weird but cool looking logo it's a blackberry I know it brings back a lot of memories

but how do you describe this device to young people you could say it was the iPhone of the 2000s back then you did not have a phone you had a blackberry us president had a blackberry top CEOs had a blackberry your neighbor probably had one too it was everywhere but today we bid farewell to

the blackberry operating system will stop working today.

 so if you have an older blackberry device it's time to upgrade if your blackberry uses an android os operating system you're fine your device will continue to work the internet is pretty emotional about this story they're calling it all sorts of things end of an era farewell to the original but to us, this is a case study the fall of a seemingly invincible giant blackberry ruled the 2000s by 2009-10 they controlled 20 of the market share selling 50 million phones every year blackberry was not just a device it was a status symbol it was a must-have for all working professionals then came the iPhone in initially nothing changed blackberry continued to dominate the smartphone market but they made one key mistake they failed to innovate apple and android introduced touch screens blackberry refused to until it was too late so customers gradually shifted away from the touch screens were trendy easier to use they looked

flashy nobody wanted the clunky qwerty keyboard.

why did blackberry refuse to adapt why did they stick with qwerty well we don't know but that decision proved fatal in 2011 blackberry's total sales was around 20 billion dollars by 2016 it was two billion dollars last year 893 million apple's journey has been the exact opposite on Monday apple's valuation

crossed three trillion dollars the first company in the world to do so three trillion what a way to start the new year I'm not saying apple is a perfect company I'm saying they captured the pulse of the market and that's what business is all about that's what blackberry failed to do most experts talk about three reasons why blackberry failed number one they ignored the touch screen they stuck with qwerty keyboards number two their obsession with their operating system to run a blackberry os you needed

a blackberry phone and reason number three their impractical designs the flip phones the slide phones all of it sounds interesting but people eventually wanted reliability not swanky designs beyond a point

now, these three reasons come down to adapting.

what if blackberry had embraced touchscreen what if they'd abandoned the qwerty who knows maybe they still would be one of the dominant players but in the corporate world what ifs do not matter the fact is apple innovated and they won blackberry did not and they lost maybe 10 years from now we'll say the same things about apple, in fact, you can hardly you can already rather see the similarities iPhones only use apple operating systems they have fixed storage space their designs are becoming repetitive how long before a new competitor emerges I know it sounds improbable at this point but stranger things have happened in business do you remember skype they pioneered video calling in the last decade you never video called someone you skyped them this application was built for the pandemic it should have aced work from home but it did not zoom was the big winner again

it's a question of innovating skype was troubled with reliability issues their calls dropped frequently

they kept changing their interface but the zoom was more dependable they focused on just one thing offering clear and uninterrupted calls now both these examples have the same lesson customer risking it doesn't matter what the company thinks blackberry thought qwerty was cool customers did not skype thought their crowded interface was cool customers did not and in the end, they booted out both the companies it tells you how powerful the customer is we can make or break brands with our choices all of you can it's a lot of power so remember to use it with caution and responsibility as for blackberry

thank you for all the memories and more importantly thank you for the lesson in this world you either adapt or you perish.