BlackBerry history

In 1988, RIM became the first wireless data technology developer in North America and the first company outside Scandinavia to develop connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks.

In 1992, RIM introduced the first Mobitex point-of-sale solution, a protocol converter box that interfaced with existing point-of-sale terminal equipment to enable wireless communication.

In 1993, RIM introduced the RIMGate, the first general-purpose Mobitex X.25 gateway.

In 1994, RIM introduced the first Mobitex mobile point-of-sale terminal.

In 1995, RIM introduced the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader.

In 1996, RIM introduced the Interactive Pager, the first two-way messaging pager, and the RIM 900 OEM radio modem.

A total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing was raised by the company prior to its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in January 1998 under the symbol RIM.

In 1999, RIM introduced the BlackBerry 850 pager.

Shortly, in 2000 BlackBerry launched its first smart phone.

11 and the 2001 anthrax scare really made a case for BlackBerry's necessity as a security device.

The first BlackBerry phones were released in 2002.

NTP and RIM settled the dispute in 2006 for more than $600 million, with NTP granting a license to RIM to use its patent.

The first three models of the iPhone (introduced in 2007) generally lagged behind the BlackBerry in sales, as RIM had major advantages in carrier and enterprise support; however, Apple continued gaining market share.

In October 2008, Apple briefly passed RIM in quarterly sales when they announced they had sold 6.9 million iPhones to the 6.1 million sold by RIM, comparing partially overlapping quarters between the companies.

In the United States, the BlackBerry user base peaked at approximately 21 million users in the fall of 2010.

BlackBerry then began to decline in use in the United States, with Apple's installed base in the United States finally passing BlackBerry in April 2011.

On January 22, 2012, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie resigned as the CEOs of the company, handing the reins over to executive Thorsten Heins.

On August 12, 2013, the company announced that it was open to being purchased and stated in an official news release to Canada's securities administrators:

In April 2014, Chen spoke of his turnaround strategy in an interview with Reuters, explaining that he intended to invest in or partner with other companies in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial, and legal services.

In September 2015, Chen unveiled the BlackBerry Priv, a keyboard-slider smartphone utilizing the Android operating system with BlackBerry-developed software enhancements, including a secure bootloader, full-disk encryption, integrity protection, and the BlackBerry HUB.

By February 2016, only 1.59 million (0.8%) of the 198.9 million smartphone users in the United States were running BlackBerry compared to 87.32 million (43.9%) on an iPhone.