Strategy and Evolution at RIMM
If Research in Motion founder Mike Lazaridis had a crystal ball in 1984, only then would he be able to predict the wild success that would have come from the humble founding of RIM. Mike Lazaridis was a recent dropout from the University of Waterloo when he decided to establish RIM. The company’s early projects were rooted in a variety of automated machinery contracts for the likes of G.M. of Canada during the mid to late eighties. These are the types of projects RIM would use as a springboard to gain additional technological competencies, from which they would parlay their success in the mobile devices arena. RIM found the product that would ultimately put it on its path to success in the late 80’s, subsequent to developing a project for the wireless company Rogers Cantel Wireless Company. The technology RIM was in charge of investigating the power of the newly found wireless technology being developed by Ericsson. This would prove the project that would afford them the early technology that would lead to the development of Blackberry technology. This proved to be one of the technological turning points for the company, for it was at this point that RIM would develop the interface technology that would lend itself to the functionality of the Blackberry email and cellular device. The key facet of their technology lie in the utilization of radio packets for the delivery of email messages, opposed to piggybacking on the existing cellular technology. The key to this technology’s success was that it afforded users an uninterrupted source of reception . When this feature was paired with a device that could carry its own address, the Blackberry was essentially born. The first Blackberry was introduced in 1999 as an option that would afford corporate and personal customers with the flexibility of accessing emails from virtually any location. For obvious reasons, the technology was an instant success. The email technology was revolutionary...