Blackberry's Fall, Similar to Nokia's Predicted Failure with its Windows OS Switch

The fall of Blackberry was quite predictable during its prime. Just like how Nokia's love gradually diminished in the hearts of the one time die hard fans of the phone brand.

What were some of the KEY pointers that these phone brands, especially in this context blackberry didn't see that led to its eventual failure?

1. *°Innovation: Before you argue that the phone brand was innovative, would you consider what it means to innovate?

°Innovation is about adaptation and consistently evolving with the changes affecting your industry.

Although Research In Motion the company behind the the blackberry phone brand depicts an innovative brand, but it gradually lost focus of its identity at some point which led to the failure they had with the phone brand - Blackberry started out as an innovative brand, one that captured the hearts of many users who longed for the quarty keyboard styled pad. However, they didn't evolve as the industry needs changed.

Key pointer => Blackberry got stuck with its first innovation that it clouded its futuristic adaptive changes required in staying relevant.

2. Design: Although this is part of innovation, I've chosen to single it out to elaborate on it. Blackberry's designs weren't transitive - They remained the same. Blackberry made a ground-breaking entry by introducing or popularising the Quarty keypad styled concept on phones. But it got trapped in its smallish screens designs, it didn't take long for users and competitors to notice the inconvenience.

For Nokia, (and even Blackberry) ego or the unwillingness to quickly evolve was the major problem they had. Their decision to stay as they were or to refuse the switch from its operating system to the operating system that was becoming a more robust platform and globally accepted operating system led to their loss. Plus, the limitations people had with its designs and operating systems.

You didn't need to be told, Nokia was the market leader in phone manufacturing - They ruled and other brands followed, picking crumbs from the fall offs. 

Back to the context of this article, Blackberry was also in vogue - If you didn't own a blackberry device, you weren't considered a cool dude or fly babe.

There were reasons why this was so. And I'll touch on those points below. 

For me, I wasn't really a Blackberry fan, even though it was the wave-making device during its prime time, I didn't quite get what people saw in the device.

It lacked so many powerful functionalities and features, things that even a Nokia Symbian could do and literally perform better. And on top of that, the battery life (although Symbian had the same problem) was nothing to write home about - And I usually would prefer a Sony Ericsson Cybershop device over it.

My two experience with a Blackberry device was when I bought the Pearl model, I liked it because it was smaller and easier to carry around, but the scrolling ball on it wasn't as efficient as the Sony Ericssons' trackpad. Ericsson really got that technology right.

My second experience was the day I wanted to try my hands on another of their device, I bought the "Bold" model and while I was at the store, still operating the device, I felt really irritated, I felt I just lost my money - I didn't really get why a lot of people were crazy about the Bold model, so I sold it back to the store owner and bought an HTC One android device.

The only thing that Blackberry used in staying ahead, almost beating whatsapp to it (in fact, crippling 2go) was their BBM messenger platform. It became the key feature that made people buy the device. 

But when Blackberry lost its love in the phone market - and couldn't maintain a sizable fan-base to compete with the likes of iPhone and Android OS! they released the BBM app for Android operating devices, it eventually led to more people leaving the Blackberry run Operating System devices and resorted to just activating the BBM app on their Android powered devices.

By this time, the Chinese Tecno and infinix phone brands were already establishing themselves as the market sweepers in Africa. (Nigeria) With more people porting to cheaper smart devices that could do more than just chat on a messenger - But could edit files, add attachments to emails, customize their devices and gain more control. Blackberry was losing more of its fan-base.

There was also this argument about the blackberry camera quality - But it wasn't a deal breaker for them, as Sony Ericsson or the later would be Sony Experia had quality cameras too - And the iPhone also won over more customers with their quality camera. By this time, Samsung was equally building momentum. 

And while all that was happening, blackberry was still ego-bloated and stuck with their OS, just like what happened to Nokia when they refused to make the switch. And by the time Blackberry decided to support the Android Operating System, it didn't have much functionality and market share to compliment its switch, hence it fell off the radar. Just as Nokia did when it switched to Windows instead of Android, from its previous Symbian OS.

Before Android OS broke the neck of Nokia Simbian and blackberry OS, java powered devices were even more efficient than the blackberry OS. A typical java powered device could do more gaming, install more productive apps and run tweaks than a blackberry device could.

And now, Blackberry has shutdown the phone arm of its business and has gone on to become a Cyber-Security company. The company is no longer known as Research In Motion but now simply goes by the name Blackberry, offering cyber security services to help secure web/cloudbase system and IoT connected devices globally.

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Share your blackberry experiences with us, why did you buy the blackberry device, which of their devices made you fall in love with the brand and why did you eventually made the switch?

And, did you ever tried Windows powered phones?