Vibe 25: BlackBerry 850, first handheld device to come out in 1999
The device featured a small screen, a physical keyboard, and wireless internet connectivity, which was revolutionary for its time.
As HT City celebrates its completion of 25 years, we look back at January 19, 1999, when the first BlackBerry wireless handheld communication device was released. The company, Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) released the device that used the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950. Called the BlackBerry 850, it ran on the Mobitex network and it was an email pager.
It looked identical to the 950, however, the 850 was the first device to integrate email. The name Inter@ctive Pager was no longer used to brand the device. The device featured a small screen, a physical keyboard, and wireless internet connectivity, which was revolutionary for its time.
Businessmen Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin co-founded Research In Motion an electronics and computer science business based in Waterloo, Ontario, the Canadian university city where Lazaridis studied. Blackberry enjoyed its clout in the market for the longest time. However, with the entry of the Apple iPhone and other competitors in the market, which the brand didn't take seriously, they suffered a huge loss in the market which BlackBerry couldn't recover from.
In 2013, RIM announced that it had changed its name to Blackberry. As of 2022, BlackBerry is now officially defunct and has decommissioned its services. It now focuses on cybersecurity and encryption services.