Ode to the Greatest smartphones ever made: Part 1
Blackberry family of devices
Blackberry.
What does the first thing that comes in your head when I say this word?
Definitely not the above. Its called "Jamun" in English. More precisely Kala Jamun..
Blackberry as we know, is a smartphone brand. A brand usually associated with people who are too busy to tell you that they are busy. Usually found hanging around in a cheapo- BMW or something and never look up to their surroundings. A brand synonymous with premium build, Quality, efficiency and of course style and statement. People who say Apple revolutionized the way we used smartphones are either too ignorant or are diehard Apple fanboys. Because here I am going to tell you the story of the inception of BlackBerry and how it slowly earned its reputation as the premium smartphone manufacturer we know of today.
Post 1990's saw the emergence of PDA's and handheld devices which performed heavy-duty tasks like reading a document, opening a .txt file or adding reminders to the calendar software. These PDA's look(ed) good and were held as a science fiction gadget only found with scientists, engineers, doctors or that rich scumbag with a Ferrari.
Pictured: An old PDA and you can use it as a self defense melee weapon
E-mail was the technology that was catching up soon and replacing a boat-load of paperwork from the offices and workstations. People didn't had Gmail back then. Everyone had an account on Microsoft Exchange Server on which they received mail and had to manually check every time they thought they had a mail incoming or unread, akin to a original mailbox.
Pagers were devices which looked like a calculator on diet and primarily used as one way relay messengers, that you can receive or send a message but not both. Pagers had an network of its own and completely managed by operators. Think of them as a Black and white mobile phones which had its keypad worn-out and can only receive SMS and open them.
Blackberry, then RIM enterprise was a OEM manufacturer and research based company which was specialized in radio transmission technology used to transfer communication data wireless. The concept of wireless messaging occurred to them when a company named Treo to whom they supplied this technology began introducing WAP browsing and wireless Internet service over their devices (and fell on their faces). They gradually started to take this concept seriously as the new world of Interconnection and instant messaging had no competitor to start with. What they did was to introduce a two way Pager which was capable of receiving and sending messages (E-mail) over the air wirelessly and was almost instant in operation that it never delayed the message from the Inbox, rather it pulled it the time it just appeared in there and "pushed" it to the device, same like we have SMS today but more productive and efficient.
Pictured: A RIM 950 two way pager
Push message was revolutionary, in the sense that even now manufacturers find it difficult to employ this feature on their flagship models (They use all time connectivity as a viable aternative which refreshes your inbox now and then and notifies you if there is a new mail and notifies you rather than pushing it on your device, In short very lazy). BlackBerry instead downloaded them on your device even making it available offline. It was necessary when the maximum internet speed which was blazingly fast was 11kbps.
Pictured: A second generation BlackBerry device which was much more capable than being a "two way pager"
BlackBerry soon understood the market for connectivity and emails back in 1990's when pagers were the craze. Blackberry ran on a primitive internet service in USA and managed the email accounts and calendar events of the user through its Network Operation Center or NOC which was a part of BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BES which monitored the email accounts and other connectivity applications of the user and pushed any new notification or content on the user's device directly. This "always on, always connected" was a novel concept which is still hugely dependent on data connections. In short in terms of usablity and connectivity Blackberry was light years ahead of its competitors which still relied on shoddy WAP service for internet connectivity and GPRS was still in nascent stage.
Now since we have the working part out of the way, let us focus on the hardware choices BlackBerry always stood by. BlackBerry devices were made to last, presumably because earlier BlackBerry's were handed out by companies to employees and one device was used by many frustrated employees who wanted to throw the BlackBerry on their boss's face. Also your business gadget is of no use if it cannot survive a fall or two without crying for help and losing all your important information. The company proudly still follows the tradition and the newer phones have a steel frame built and integrated into their polycarbonate frame. Yes, A DAMN STEEL FRAME!
Soon BlackBerry converged the domain of smartphones and its virtually flawless but expensive messenger feature devices and launched their first blackberry smartphone the 5810 and marketed it as Email capable mobile phones and the later launched various models which essentially followed this same feature, 6210 being the legendary phone which is the granddaddy of all the qwerty phones that followed (The most visible derivative is the Bold series).
BlackBerry was quiet successful in drawing a crowd of business suits who wanted efficiency and connectivity on the go, and like a symbiotic advantage BlackBerry users were also identified as such. Stocks followed the direction of the sky and it started reaching out to non-professional consumers who also wanted connectivity on the go and especially the famous BBM, the ancestor to WhatsApp application.
The story continues in next part where we will see how Blackberry lost its consumer base and how it is resurrecting itself from the ashes.
Till then Sayonara .....
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