Comment by Ensorceled
Comment by Ensorceled 2 days ago
I know people who were at RIM at the time, including someone who was in the room when they passed around the first iPhone they got a hold of. They firmly believed the iPhone was dead on arrival both because the product was "terrible" (no keyboard, no battery life, etc. etc.) and, more importantly, because they were so confident Apple would not be able to pull off the networking required and people wouldn't be able to use the device at all.
People forget just how powerful RIM was in the business world, and the keyboard WAS a real stickler (even today, you can go to any large conference and ask "who here misses the blackberry keyboard" and you'll get a decent show of hands).
It was a real issue and a real opportunity - I remember for years after the iPhone came out the blackberry die-hards were insisting that they'd easily be able to make something that was "iPhone like with a blackberry keyboard" - but during those years more and more people started carrying two phones, an iPhone for home and a blackberry for work.
That was the beginning of the end.