10 Secrets About Research In Motion

by Mac Jadalhack

8 March 2010 View Comments

We all just know Research In Motion (RIM) for the BlackBerry, but some don’t know much about their pasts, and what their old services consisted of. These may not seem so much as secrets, I’d like to look at them as information about RIM that no one knows really. I found some of these to be interesting, especially the ones showing how far RIM goes back with their business and how little of an operation they used to be once upon a time. Hit the jump to check out the full list of secrets.

1. RIM’s first pager (as it was then called) was so bulky it was dubbed Bullfrog. Released in 1996, Bullfrog had a four-line screen and full QWERTY keyboard all covered by a hinged lid. It weighed 3/4 lb. and was the size of a double cheeseburger.
2. The first product from Research In Motion, founded in 1984 by university dropouts Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, was called Budgie. It consisted of a TV screen linked to a keyboard that allowed entry of point-of-sale information by retailers. Of the 100 units produced, only one-third sold.
3. More successful was Digi-Sync, a piece of film editing equipment, launched in 1989. The product won both an Emmy and an Oscar for technical achievement.
4. When Jim Balsillie, now co-CEO with Lazaridis, joined the Waterloo-based company in 1992 there were only fourteen employees. By 1997 there were 100. Today, there are more than 12,000.
5. Jim Balsillie is five weeks older than Mike Lazardis. Both are 49.
6. When the BlackBerry was launched in 1999, among the short-listed names for the new product was Blade until someone went online and found that one of the Blade domains led to an Internet porn site. Other finalist names included Byline and Outrigger.
7. It took five years, from 1999 to 2004, to sign up the first one million BlackBerry subscribers. These days, one million new customers join each month choosing among a dozen models sold by more than 500 carriers in 170 countries.
8. Among the earliest fans was Oprah Winfrey who, in 2003, declared BlackBerry one of her “favourite things.”
9. Largest user of BlackBerry, with more than one million subscribers, is the U.S. government. Biggest private sector customer is Citibank.
10. Last year,Fortunemagazine declared Research In Motion the fastest-growing company in the world. Annual revenue in 1992 was $1 million, in 2010 it’s $15 billion.

-by Mac Jadalhack

Source: The Sudbury Star