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Handhelds Wireless Networking Businesses Hardware

The Complete History of RIM 94

Posted by timothy from the first-there-were-the-dinosaurs dept.
museumpeace writes "I enjoyed reading Alex Frankel's thorough Tech. Review article on the luck, persistence and shrewdness that took RIM's proprietary mobile e-mail technology from presumed small niche product to the must-have blackberry that so many use today. Although the technology at the heart of the product was developed in 1989, it took years of further development, the lucky break of GPRS supplanting Mobitex, and the business smarts to jump on their first-mover advantage and the daring to partner with giant Nokia who could have swallowed RIM. Its a great example of how to succeed by carefully making a defacto standard out of a good proprietary technology."
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The Complete History of RIM More

The Complete History of RIM

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  • You'd think (Score:5, Funny)

    by BillsPetMonkey ( 654200 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @06:30AM (#12913299)
    They could find a better name for it.

    All this talk of mobile RIMming and Nokia swallowing RIM just sounds a bit icky.

    • Not to mention... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The explosion of RIM jobs and how it lead to an increase of black berries...

    • Re:You'd think (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Here's a story that fits in perfectly here.

      Before RIM really hit the big time, my company had a chance encounter with them, and ended up getting a job to do some e-commerce programming for them. The project involved about two months of them trying to figure out just what they wanted to do, and me trying to keep up with the constant scope changes. After all that hassle, I handed over a working script to them, which they...promptly deployed into production, right?

      Heh, I wish. As far as I know, they ended
    • I applied for a RIM job about a year ago. I had a friend who already had a RIM job, so that gave me a leg up on the competition. The interview for my RIM job was a little disappointing. I didnt realize I had to talk to so many people just to get a RIM job. And to top it all off, they asked me some really easy questions. I think I had a good shot at getting a RIM job, but I ended up going elsewhere. I'll probably apply for a RIM job again in a year or two, because eventually I want one. I just have to
    • I once applied for a job working with RIM. On the application it asked for "tongue length".. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life.
  • Blackberry is used by so many? just recently on slashdot was the first time I and many had heard of it.

    Marketing hype taking over slashdot.
    • I'm not sure that Blackberry has really penetrated the tech crowd so much. It was supposed to be very popular around Washington, I'd heard.

      Or maybe this is marketing hype after all. We do seem to be getting a lot of that lately. Slashdot editors trying to earn some extra cash, perahps?
      • I have seen it a fair amount in the Washington DC area.

        I mean, the technology is interesting, but from an enterprise standpoint, I have a problem with it being "yet another system to set up and maintain". Since the whole thing is proprietary, its not like you can run it from either open sourced stuff or even popular stuff like MS Exchange.

        From an end user standpoint, it appears to me like 2-way paging, except that it acts like e-mail. Maybe it resonates with users because it is like a pager. Personally
        • True. I believe the Canadian and American Govt are probably the biggest adopters of it. For me, I don't need that much of a leash especially if I was to pay for it. $80 a month just for email and phone on top of my high speed and cable connection nah too much. Cell is bad enough.
        • its not like you can run it from either open sourced stuff or even popular stuff like MS Exchange.

          Uhhhh...what? I hope you are not suggesting that it doesn't work with Exchange. It fully integrates with Exchange (this was the first mail server it was built for).

          And as for set up, really it's
          - Make an an account with x permissions
          - Install the server software
          - Add user to the server
          - Connect BlackBerry to the desktop to register with the mail server.
          - DONE!

          • Re:Its fine (Score:3, Insightful)

            by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) *
            It does work with exchange, but you have to add more "stuff" to exchange to make it work.

            Ideally, the blackberry should look like every other email user in the world out there.

            In other words, the middleware (the toll bridge) that blackberry has built is, in my opinion, superfluous. It forces the infrastructure to treat users differently based on the type of end device.

            What I'd rather see is the blackberry use existing protocols (Secure IMAP? POP via secure tunnel?)

            I'm not blaming blackberry I like th
      • You are quite right about it not hitting the tech crowd very much. The BlackBerry is meant to do one thing, and it does that one thing better than any. Email.

        The tech crowd want something like the Treo that can do everything.

        The business professional just wants rock solid and secure email. And the BlackBerry offers them that.
        • Out in Vegas a few weeks ago at a convention, I bet I saw 50 Treo's clipped to people's belts (both techie and management types), while I saw a grand total of ONE blackberry.

          The thing that really struck me about the blackberry was it's size. The bulk of the Treo took a little getting used to for me, but that blackberry was huge.
      • Maybe it would have been popular with the tech people if it had been more convergent rather than a narrow proprietary gadget. There were millions of laptops out there and millions of cell phones. Nobody could make them work together except perhaps some tech heads who happened to notice they both had IR ports. Why is that? Why do we have another technolgy taking off that doesn't work with other stuff?
    • It is a device that isn't so big with the gadget crowd, but a must have for corporate users, mostly becasue it's not necesarily sexy, but it does do its job well. It's not something and individual geek would have.
    • In the federal government, it's about the only approved PDA you can get that will let you sync your work email. Some models also double as cell phones.

      You know you're sitting in a room of "very important bureaucrats" because you see them checking their email during meetings.

      The ostensible reason they're so popular is during 9/11, cellphones didn't work, but Blackberries worked fine.
      • The reason it's the approved choice of the government is because of security. 3DES encryption while in transmission over the wireless network.

        Also has the ability to use S/MIME underneath the 3DES so that when it's travelling on the regular internet traffic, it's still encrypted.

        (and yes, I know, you can do S/MIME with the Treo also)
    • Trust me guy; Blackberry is THE STANDARD when it comes to corporate mobile e-mail. My dad is a system admin, and he uses the Blackberry with the Nextel Direct Connect capability. Just walk around New York City and see how many of the corporate suits carry one of these device along with their cellular and laptops (if they need them). Heck, last night I even saw a young boy learning how to use HIS OWN Blackberry from his mom and dad who BOTH had one. They even have an illness assiciated with it. Blackber
    • Blackberry is used by so many? just recently on slashdot was the first time I and many had heard of it.

      Blackberry has not been sold to geeks - it has primary sold to executives and traditional professionals like doctors and lawyers. It's on the radar for geeks because RIM is selling the hell out of Enterprise Servers - which get stuck in the data center.

      Personally, I've owned treos, PocketPC phones, and even kyocera smartphones. Nothing comes close to the user experience with BlackBerry - but they coul
      • Only some APIs require signing. You can still write complex apps without paying anything if you stick to the unsigned APIs.

        The BlackBerry also runs MIDlets, which you can write with no fees. As a bonus, MIDlets also work on hundreds of other mobile phones.
        • Plus it is not a per-application fee. It's more of a per-company fee. Once you get the certificate from RIM, you can sign as many applications as you want.

          However, it's true that they could use an open-source community.

          Regards
    • Gartner says it's the #1 selling PDA: Gartner Report [blackberrycool.com]
    • I'd heard of it before.. some US type managers came over here and demanded it was issued to them. It needs a dedicated server (not compatible with IMAP.. ffs!) and was vetoed on financial grounds.

      I saw one up close once.. damn fugly with a tiny qwerty keyboard & mmonochrome display.
      • Not true. Mine's color! :) There is also the model 7199T that has a funky 20 key keyboard and uses 'intelligence' to help you out. It's obnoxious. I'll stick to my small qwerty keyboard... I've learned it well enough to do whatever I really need to, mostly. Sometimes it takes a bit more control than I want it to, but I modify the SmartText when that happens.
        The thing that I hate is that the browser on it kinda stinks. I mean, it's great for the mobile targeted sites, I can order movie tickets, etc..

    • I work in DC.

      Blackberries are all over the place here. On a downtown Metro platform, at rush hour at least 3-5 will be visible at any given time.

      I administer a Blackberry Enterprise Server. The ubiquitous, strong, transparent encryption, wireless wipe/reprovisioning and underground (Metrorail) coverage from Verizon makes the devices very popular here.

    • I'm guessing you don't have a corporate job.

      In my company (gotta keep the details light...), probably 1 in 3 people have a blackberry, and its been that way for some time. (of course if you buy one and can claim you need it for 'business' the company pays for it, so why shoudln't everyone? but i digress)

      Several members of our current management team actualy got hired as result of a decision our CEO made while on a hunting trip with his blackberry. He was out stalking deer, but the offer we made got sent
  • What about Nokia?

    I know M$ is bad and GNU/Linux good beyond that I get a cluster headache.

  • Article Text (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In November 2002, Research in Motion (RIM) and Nokia announced a licensing arrangement allowing Nokia to offer its customers the ability to receive e-mail using RIM's BlackBerry software. The news perplexed industry watchers. For the three years before the deal, only RIM's devices could connect with the company's enterprise server, so that RIM owned both parts of the market for wireless e-mail: the devices and their software. RIM, in fact, seemed to own the very notion of that market.

    The BlackBerry was the
  • That oughta bring out INSTANT success right?

    (muhahahaha!)

  • My brief encouner with them (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhotoGuy ( 189467 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @07:00AM (#12913356) Homepage
    In the early 90's, I talked with RIM about potential employment. They had a low speed external modem using Mobitex (I think) that would hook to your serial port.

    They didn't have the "killer app" for it at the time, but were very much in the mode of "let's be smart and figure out a good application for this technology." While that approach can often be puttnig the cart before the horse, they persisted, and it obviously paid off, hitting the sweet spot of using the lower speed bandwidth for the two-way pager-like always-on-but-not-quite-fully-online BlackBerry.

    It really is a rare and excellent example of finding the right killer app for a given (and flexible, but seeming limited) technology. Having the technical wherewithal to put that in a small pager-like device (several years ago), obviously shows some real technical talents in their company, too.

  • Doesn't this make them evil (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MonGuSE ( 798397 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @07:11AM (#12913372)
    "Its a great example of how to succeed by carefully making a defacto standard out of a good proprietary technology."

    I thought that we were shunning this approach at standards wrangling? Whenever MS or Sony tries this we are against it what is different this time?

    • Oops my bad I forgot Microsoft only makes shitty proprietary technology....
    • "I thought that we were shunning this approach at standards wrangling? Whenever MS or Sony tries this we are against it what is different this time?"

      The difference is that we like the Blackberry, but we don't like Windows or the Memory Stick. We just babble about standards wrangling because it makes our biases sound like they're based within objective reason.

      I'll give you an example: Tabs in Mozilla. Good! Tabs in IE. BAD!

  • Started in 1984 as a firm that built electronic devices for other companies, RIM signed its first deal with General Motors, to deliver a networked display system that scrolled words across LED signs in GM factories.

    Odd. In 1988, I worked for a company Vipco/Magic Sign that had a project to design and make networked LED display signs for GM factories... I forget if we were handed a spec to match or what. It sounds like GM moved on to another supplier after a few years. Is RIM padding their résum

  • Microsoft could learn a thing or two... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by duffer_01 ( 184844 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @08:33AM (#12913526) Homepage
    There is good reason why the email client in Windows Mobile 5.0 will not kill off the BlackBerry. RIM has done a great job taking advantage of the network infrastructure. Now if they could just make a device with enough power to run a real application this thing could really take off.

  • They're like Tivo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bwalling ( 195998 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @09:03AM (#12913610) Homepage
    The Blackberry is popular because it does what you want it to do without any hassle. Other PDA Email devices suck in comparison. It seems so simple - basically be a live connected email client, but all the others just have ridiculous methods of going about it.

    It's the same thing as Tivo. You don't realize how nice the Tivo is until you try the cable company's DVR. Sure, it accomplishes the task, but it's more painful.
    • I have a friend who needed to buy a new connected cellphone. We looked at the Treo 650 and the Blackberry.

      The Treo was the nicer looking device and had the better display, but its pretty-looking keyboard was horrid to type on, and the user interface for web forms was clunky at best.

      The Blackberry really is the best device on the market right now, with the possible exception of the T-Mobile Sidekick, which I have. Unfortunately, the Sidekick relies on T-Mobile's rather questionable network, and that limi

      • Re:They're like Tivo (Score:3, Interesting)

        by bonehead ( 6382 )
        To be fair, I think that any of the qwerty keyboards on mobile devices take some getting used to. Having only spent a few minutes in the store with a blackberry, I would way that its keyboard is horrid to type on.

        Then again, I had the same impression of the Treo keyboard until I had spent a few days with it. After a few months, I'm pretty much at the "touch typing" point on the Treo. I'm reasonably fast, and only need to look at the keyboard for puncuation.

        As for the blackberry being the best on the ma
        • Actually, it is possible to use a BlackBerry with zero server-side changes as well, if your server supports POP3 or IMAP (so GMail, and paid Hotmail/Yahoo! accounts are also supported).

          The BlackBerry Internet Service (which is what gets sold to Joe Sixpack when he goes into the store to buy one) is designed to integrate external accounts (up to 10) seamlessly and with zero hassle.

          Server-side changes are only required if you want to use their special server software, which provides native integration wi

        • I dealt with spam by just letting my home computer process my email. The rules I've set up with Apple mail then forward "interesting" messages to my mobile mail account. They actually "redirect" the mail so it appears to be coming from the actual sender instead of my email address.

          That's worked just fine for me so far.

          D
      • I'm almost certain the Blackberry is made by a Chinese contract manufacturer, just like everyone else's stuff.

        Actually, they are made in Waterloo Ontario (that's up here in Canada eh)....about 500 meters or so from the main core of the campus.
    • Perhaps you could say what it is that RIM devices do, that my phone with its IMAP client doesn't do using open standard protocols?

  • I hate the Blackberry (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sgeye ( 757198 )
    I work for a mid-sized CPA firm, and I have to manage our Blackberries. I have had more problems with them than any other handheld. From parts of the address book being completely lost, both on the handheld and in Groupwise, to duplicated calendar entries, to some accounts simply refusing to synchronize. There tech-support is a shame, every time I call I get the same answer, "Delete the RIM folder under application data." We told our Partners not to get them, but they just had to have them because "everyone
    • Does it synchronize after deleting the folder? You know, that one folder that all it does is hold the configuration information...doesn't actually hold the contacts or calendar entries. So who cares if there are 4 entries or 40000.

      And if you take a look...it's the same company that makes the sync software for the Palm as for the BlackBerry.

      Duplicated calendar entries is usually because of incorrect permissions (note, I said usually, not always).
      • Yes, it still synchronizes, but the problem doesn't go away. Well, the address book one goes away if you do that. But the profile that will not synch still doesn't synch, and the profiles that get dupe calendar entries keep getting dupes. The only solution I found for that is to backup the handheld, whipe it clean, clear out the dupes in GroupWise, then resynch, and restore the autotext/favorites etc from backup.
    • I also run a Blackberry Enterprise Server connected to GroupWise in a huge environment. All of my experiences with RIM support have been excellent.

      Every issue I have brought to RIMs attention has been resolved and the techs have been happy to give detailed explanations of everything I've thought to ask them.


  • It's too bad they have such an unbalanced feel, and such a PITA keyboard.
    Yes, I have one for work (for several months now), and I absolutely hate it.

    The user interface needs a lot of work.

    The balance is very top-heavy, making it very awkward to type on and hold at the same time. For a comparison, the way you hold a Sidekick/HipTop is extremely comfortable due to the overhang beside the keyboard and the c/g near the center of the keyboard - they're a breeze to type on very quickly and you can perform any f
  • One thing that isn't mentioned in the article is its proximity to the University of Waterloo. Its one of the world's bestComputer Science and Engineering schools and has a massive Co-Op program.
  • I owned a RIM 950 [the-gadgeteer.com] for at least three years and haven't stopped looking for a similar gadget since mine broke. All I want is a device that allows me to (i) thumb-type short (but frequent) notes and (ii) allows me to somehow transfer those notes into a PC (preferably using Linux). I'm not really looking for a high-end, camera-&-color-display-included type cell phone: just a simple, portable, rugged gadget in which I can thumb-type and then copy that stuff onto my laptop (rs232, usb, ir, etc all being ok)
  • I used to write software for the old RIM 950, back before they introduced Blackberry. It was very nice hardware .. a 286 (or 386, I can't remember) with a few megs of RAM, all running on a few AA (or AAA, again it's been a while) batteries. Oh, and their software was all written in C/C++. And trust me, that was important..

    Their competition at the time was the Motorola Pagewriter, which was crappy hardware with even worse software. It was dog slow, and you had to use their weird programming language whi

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