It’s weird for me to say this, but I’m really looking forward to a movie coming to theatres in May. So much so that I actually might go to the theatre to check it out rather than wait for it to appear on Netflix or some other streaming service. The picture will likely not win any Oscars, although I can’t be sure of that. I couldn’t tell you right now the names of any of the actors, so star-power-wise it’s not going to run with the big pictures. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up being the only guy in the theatre. The movie?
BLACKBERRY.
Yes, I said it and I’m okay with that.
It’s the story of the meteoric rise of Canadian company Research In Motion and their creation of the iconic smartphone with the raised qwerty keyboard. It’s also the story of the meteoric fall from grace of the very same company.
I was a steadfast BlackBerry owner since they first came out. My first cell phone ( it wasn’t particularly smart) looked like Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone from the TV show GET SMART back in the sixties. And while the first Blackberrys looked like a brick with little keys on it, they eventually got to the point where they could make a device you could talk into and hold in one hand. What killed me, though, was that you could email on it! Talk, text, and email, a communication panacea.
I was the only one in my circle of associates who had one, other than the various politicians that I worked with and for. For them it became known as the Crackberry, as all manner of power-brokers seemingly became addicted to the device. Hell, you could even play games, though that wasn’t my thing.
It was almost a status symbol having a phone like this at the time. My God, I could get the internet even, although in the early days that really wasn’t any hell to speak of.
What it didn’t have was a camera, and by the time it did, competitors – read Apple – had leapfrogged the Canadians with cameras, an app ecosystem, and prestige. The BlackBerry had been replaced by the iPhone.
I kept using BlackBerrys even with the rise of the iPhone until the day came when I just couldn’t do the things I wanted to do unless I had the Apple product, which synergized really well with their laptops, of which I owned several.
I don’t play the stock market, because I’m a fool and I’d lose everything I’m sure. But then the price of a BlackBerry share, once as high as $212, had dropped to $12. I was convinced the company would come screaming back with a superior product, so I bought a bunch of shares. Almost immediately, the shares bounced to $19 and I was on my way to beating the market, and as a rookie no less.
I hung on. The price began to drop again, but I hung on, steely-eyed and sure. It sunk back to the $12 mark, and still, I hung on. Then, one afternoon, the bottom dropped out. The share price went into free-fall after an earnings call and, being at work, I couldn’t do anything about it. In two hours, on a Friday afternoon, I lost $5000.00. And I got out, tail between my legs.
Months later, I read in the paper that the stock had fallen into the $5 range. I thought there’s no way it can go lower, it’s BlackBerry for Pete’s sake! So I bought more, clever little bastard that I am. And it went up! All the way to $11/share! But this time, I caved and sold the whole works, just before it went back into the hole again. I got $2500.00 back, which made me feel sort of good, but still, I was chastened by my stock market/BlackBerry experience.
I had a lot of emotion invested in that company and their phone. It’s suggested that the movie might be a bit of a comedy. That will make it the first time I ever laugh while thinking back on the roller coaster ride that was BlackBerry.
I could use a good laugh.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 