Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry (36 page)

7
Transcript from interview with Mike Lazaridis conducted by Ron Milton in “The Laureate: Journal of the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation,” June 2008, pp. 8–17.

8
Nick Wingfield, “iPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple’s Jobs,”
Wall Street Journal,
August 11, 2008.

9
Isaacson,
Steve Jobs,
p. 502.

10
Ted C. Fishman, “What Happened to Motorola,”
Chicago Magazine,
August 25, 2014.

11
David Pogue, “No Keyboard? And You Call This a BlackBerry?”
New York Times,
November 27, 2008.

12
Stephen Fry, “Gee, One Bold Storm Coming Up …,”
www.stephenfry.com
, December 11, 2008,
www.stephenfry.com/2008/12/11/gee-one-bold-storm-coming-up/
.

13
Rory Cellan-Jones, “Can Stephen Fry Kill a Gadget?” dot.life blog,
BBC News,
November 27, 2008,
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/technology/2008/11/can_stephen_fry_kill_a_gadget.html
.

14
Amol Sharma and Sara Silver, “BlackBerry Storm Is Off to Bit of a Bumpy Start,”
Wall Street Journal,
January 26, 2009.

12 / OFFSIDE

1
Oral Ruling of the Ontario Securities Commission, “In the Matter of Research in Motion Limited, James Balsillie, Mike Lazaridis, Dennis Kavelman, Angelo Loberto, Kendall Cork, Douglas Wright, James Estill and Douglas Fregin,” February 5, 2009, p. 2.
www.osc.gov.on.ca/documents/en/Proceedings-RAD/rad_20090521_rim_set.pdf
.

2
Two weeks later the Washington-based Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled a settlement requiring the RIM executives to pay an additional $1.4 million in penalties for the options backdating and disgorge an additional $843,415.

3
Janet McFarland, “OSC Slaps RIM Officials with $77-Million Payment,”
Globe and Mail,
February 5, 2009.

4
United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona, In re Dewey Ranch Hockey, LLC, Coyotes Holdings, LLC, Coyotes Hockey, LLC and Arena Management Group LLC, debtors, case no: 2:09-bk-09-09488-RTBP, “PSE Sports and Entertainment LP’s position on August 5 sale hearing and August 3 NHL sale rescheduling motion,” Doc. 533, filed July 31, 2009, p. 5.

5
Sinclair Stewart and Paul Waldie, “Beware Balsillie’s Competitive Fever,”
Globe and Mail,
June 15, 2007.

6
United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona, In re Dewey Ranch Hockey, LLC, Coyotes Holdings, LLC, Coyotes Hockey, LLC and Arena Management Group LLC, debtors, case no: 2:09-bk-09-09488-RTBP, “Declaration of Craig Leipold,” Doc. 585, filed August 7, 2009, p. 2.

7
Ibid., Exhibit A.

8
The Competition Bureau of Canada did make inquiries into NHL practices in 2007, but the file was closed within weeks.

9
United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona, In re Dewey Ranch Hockey, LLC, Coyotes Holdings, LLC, Coyotes Hockey, LLC, and Arena Management Group, LLC, debtors, case no: 2:09-bk—09-09488-RTBP, “Declaration of Craig Leipold,” Doc. 585, filed August 7, 2009, p. 5.

10
Ibid.

11
Reyes eventually sold his stake in the San Jose Sharks after a prolonged legal battle that saw his conviction overturned, then reinstated in 2010 after a second trial.

12
United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona, In re Dewey Ranch Hockey, LLC, Coyotes Holdings, LLC, Coyotes Hockey, LLC, and Arena Management Group, LLC, debtors, case no: 2:09-bk—09-09488-RTBP, “Supplemental submission of the National Hockey League in support of motion for a determination
that debtors’ NHL membership rights may not be transferred to PSE or an affiliate thereof,” Doc. 879, filed September 1, 2009, p. 2.

13
Based on author search of Factiva online database. First mention of abbreviated Protiviti report was: Teresa Poletti, “Time for RIM Chiefs to Dial Back Their Roles,”
MarketWatch,
July 11, 2011.

13 / DISCONNECT

1
Stephen H. Wildstrom, “How Apple’s iPhone Reshaped the Industry,”
Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine,
December 10, 2008.

2
Walter Isaacson,
Steve Jobs,
New York, Simon & Schuster, 2011, p. 502.

3
“BusinessWeek/Interbrand Release Annual Ranking of the 100 ‘Best Global Brands,’ “ press release, September 18, 2009.

4
Kate Solomon, “RIM: We Don’t Need 200 Fart Apps for App World Success,”
Recombu,
September 29, 2010,
http://recombu.com/mobile/article/rim-we-dont-need-200-fart-apps-for-app-world-success_M12412.html
.

5
Fred Vogelstein,
Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution,
New York, Penguin, 2013, pp. 92–93.

6
Ken Auletta, “Searching for Trouble,”
New Yorker,
October 12, 2009.

7
Niraj Sheth and Jessica E. Vascellaro, “Google, Verizon Deepen Ties: CEOs Develop Friendship as They Look to Challenge Apple’s iPhone,”
Wall Street Journal,
November 10, 2009.

8
Fred Vogelstein, “How the Android Ecosystem Threatens the iPhone,”
Wired,
April 14, 2011.

9
Wailin Wong, “ ‘No Quick Fix’ for Motorola Cell Unit; 3,000 Job Cuts, Sales Decline Expected; Company Posts Loss,”
Chicago Tribune,
October 31 2008.

10
Sheth and Vascellaro, “Google, Verizon Deepen Ties.”

11
Vogelstein,
Dogfight.

12
Data for monthly U.S. smartphone subscriber market share published by comScore, Inc., at
comscore.com
.

13
Data released by market research firm Canalys at
Canalys.com
.

14
Transcript from interview with Mike Lazaridis conducted by Ron Mikon in “The Laureate: Journal of the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation,” June 2008, pp. 8–17.

15
This anecdote was shared by Verizon’s John Stratton with a RIM executive in 2014. A second RIM executive was told the Barcelona meeting “broke the camel’s back” and permanently impaired the Verizon-RIM relationship.

14 / GOAT RODEO

1
“Heroes of Manufacturing,”
Fortune Magazine,
March 17, 2003.

2
Dan Dodge, “Software Comes of Age,”
ECN,
April 1, 2006.

3
Customers posted their complaints about Torch here:
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Torch/Button-panel-peeled-off-ATT-replaced-my-torch/td-p/569359
.

4
By 2012 Heins would declare the quality improvement project successful after it meaningfully improved return rates and lessened customer complaints.

5
Other than confirming that he told Tobin he should be reporting to him, Lazaridis declined to comment on his relationship with Tobin.

6
www.rankingthebrands.com/Brand-detail.aspx?brandID=21
.

15 / FAULT LINES

1
Ben Worthen, “Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases,”
Wall Street Journal,
August 24, 2010.

2
Jobs claimed Adobe “screwed” him by refusing to make a Mac version of Adobe Premiere in 1999 and later attacked Flash, telling biographer Walter Isaacson that it was “a spaghetti-ball piece of technology that has lousy performance and really bad security problems.” Isaacson,
Steve Jobs,
pp. 514–5.

3
Clayton Christensen,
The Innovator’s Dilemma,
Boston, Harvard Business Publishing, 1997.

4
BlackBerry turned down interview requests with Dan Dodge for this book.

5
Chloe Albanesius, “Adobe Ditching Mobile Browser Flash Player Development,”
PC Magazine,
November 9, 2011.

6
RIM’s share of AT&T, which was lower to begin with because of the carrier’s relationship with Apple, dipped to 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, down from 18 percent a year earlier.

7
Mikael Ricknäs, “Samsung Becomes Biggest Smartphone Vendor, as Android’s Market Share Grows,”
PC World,
November 15, 2011.

8
Paul Christoper Webster and Iain Marlow, “Where the BlackBerry Still Reigns Supreme,”
Report on Business Magazine
, November 29, 2012.

9
Susana Ferreira and Will Connors, “In These Countries, BlackBerry Is Still King—Of Pop Culture,”
Wall Street Journal,
September 11, 2012.

10
“BlackBerry Babes,”
The Economist,
December 8, 2012.

11
“BlackBerry Loses Top Spot to Apple at Home: Corporate Canada,”
Bloomberg,
March 22, 2012.

12
Zahraa al Khalisi, “BlackBerry ‘Pins’ Are the New Licence Plates,”
The National
(United Arab Emirates), September 19, 2009; author interview with Patrick Spence, 2014.

13
Sandeep Singh Grewal, “Comeback Vow by Journalist,”
Gulf Daily News,
September 23, 2010; Yousef, “Blackberries, Breaking News and Bans,”
Flipcorp.com
, September 25, 2011,
www.flipcorp.com/en/read/blog/bahrain-blackberries.blog
.

14
This information is based on a statement of defense and counterclaim filed in Canadian Federal Court by Kik Interactive against RIM in April 2011; it was not tested in court. Court filing case T-1996-10 was filed by RIM against Kik Interactive in November 2010 and settled out of court in September 2013. BlackBerry subsequently declined to comment on the case.

15
Sean Silcoff, “BlackBerry, Kik Interactive Settle Lawsuit over Instant Messaging App,”
Globe and Mail,
October 7, 2013.

16
The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2013.

17
Stuart Weinberg and Roger Cheng, “RIM Tries to Push PlayBook Tablet,”
Wall Street Journal,
April 15, 2011.

18
E. B. Boyd, “Jobs Takes a Swing at Android, BlackBerry,”
www.fastcompany.com
, October 18, 2010,
www.fastcompany.com/1696148/jobs-takes-swing-android-blackberry
.

19
Clint Boulton, “RIM CEO: Apple Is Wrong for Having an App for That,”
eWeek
, November 16, 2010.

20
Peter Kafka, “RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, Live at Dive into Mobile,”
AllthingsD.com
,
December 7, 2010. A video of the on-stage interview with Lazaridis is posted at:
http://allthingsd.com/20101213/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-rims-mike-lazaridis/
.

21
Adrian Cover, “Can You Figure Out WTF RIM’s CEO Is Talking About?”
Gizmodo
, December 7, 2010.

16 / WATERLOO SPRING

1
Omar El Akkad, “Rim Slashes Profit Outlook as Wireless Competition Heats Up,”
Globe and Mail
, April 28, 2011.

2
Martin Peers, “BlackBerry Maker’s Slow-Motion Decline,”
Wall Street Journal,
March 26, 2011.

3
Ian Austen, “Eyes on a Rebound,”
New York Times,
April 11, 2011.

4
Jonathan S. Geller, “Open Letter to BlackBerry Bosses: Senior RIM Exec Tells All as Company Crumbles Around Him,”
BGR,
June 30, 2011.
http://bgr.com/2011/06/30/open-letter-to-blackberry-bosses-senior-rim-exec-tells-all-as-company-crumbles-around-him/
.

5
Austen, “Eyes on a Rebound.”

6
“RIM CEO Calls a Halt to BBC Click Interview,”
BBC,
April 13, 2011,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9456798.stm
.

7
Stuart Weinberg and Roger Cheng, “RIM Tries to Push PlayBook Tablet,”
Wall Street Journal,
April 15, 2011.

8
Jay Palmer, “The BlackBerry Strikes Back,”
Barron’s,
April 16, 2011.

9
Dean Bubley, “Joyn, a World of Delusion,” posted at disruptivewireless.blogspot.ca, March 18, 2013.

17 / HANGING UP

1
Gordon Pitts, “Roger Martin: Defying RIM’s Critics,”
Globe and Mail,
February 10, 2012.

2
Caline Malek, “BlackBerry Cuts Made Roads Safer, Police Say,”
The National
(United Arab Emirates), October 15, 2011.

3
Rolfe Winkler, “Heard on the Street/Financial Analysis and Commentary,”
Wall Street Journal,
October 14, 2011.

4
Toby Shapshak, “Cracks Showing at BlackBerry,”
The Sunday Times,
Oct. 16, 2011.

5
“BlackBerry Sorry, but Is It too Late,”
Chicago Tribune,
October 14, 2011.

6
The
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
was renamed
The Waterloo Region Record
in March 2008.

EPILOGUE

1
Greg Mercer, “The New Heart of Quantum Valley,”
Guelph Mercury,
September 22, 2012.

2
Harry McCracken, “The BlackBerry Passport’s Weird Design Pays Off—But the App Situation Remains Bleak,”
Fast Company,
September 24, 2014,
www.fastcompany.com/3036124/blackberry-passport-review
.

3
“Android Captures 84% Share of Global Smartphone Shipments in Q3 2014,” posted by
Strategy Analytics,
October 31, 2014,
http://blogs.strategyanalytics.com/WSS/author/nmawston.aspx
.