HISTORY OF BLACKBERRY

The first BlackBerry device, the 850, was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager in Munich, Germany. The reason for the monumental growth of BlackBerry is explainable because in 1999 it was little more than a mobile pager. It did integrate with existing enterprise email, though most consumers didn’t really have a need for a mobile email device. Cell phones in general weren’t even big in the consumer market at that point, so the need for a wireless PDA was expectedly lacking. But it did provide corporate data access, an organizer, calendar, paging, and wireless Internet, so it was of great use to businesses who wanted a more mobile workforce. After the launch 1999, in November 2004 RIM announced that there were over 2 million subscribers worldwide, it rose to 5 million in 2005 after 9 months it rose to 14 million subscribers and as of October 2011, there were seventy million subscribers worldwide to BlackBerry which has now risen enormously to over a hundred million subscribers in 2012. BlackBerry devices support a large variety of instant messaging features, with the most popular being the unique BlackBerry Messenger  service. BlackBerry accounts for 7.2% of mobile device sales worldwide in 2012, making its manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) the fourth most popular device maker (25% of mobile device sales are smartphones) after the likes of the top:

1.       South Korea Samsung 25.4%

2.       Finland Nokia 22.5%

3.       Canada BlackBerry 10.2%

4.       United State Apple Inc 9.5%

5.       United State Motorola 6%

6.       South Korea LG 5.2%

The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies.