History BlackBerry

BlackBerry is a line of mobile e-mail and smartphone devices developed and designed byCanadian company Research In Motion (RIM) since 1999.

BlackBerry functions as a personal digital assistant with address book, calendar, memopad, and task list capabilities. It also functions as a portable media player with support for music and video playback and camera and video capabilities. BlackBerry is primarily known for its ability to send and receive (push) Internet e-mail wherever mobile network service coverage is present, or through Wi-Fi connectivity. BlackBerry phones possess a large array of messaging features, including auto-text, auto-correct, text prediction, support for many languages, keyboard shortcuts, text emoticons, and push notifications for many systems including email, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Ebay; push instant messaging via BlackBerry Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messanger and Yahoo Messenger; threaded text messaging and a customizable indicator light near the top right of all BlackBerry devices. All notifications and conversations from applications are shown in a unified messaging application which third party applications can access. All data on the phone is compressed through BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).

BlackBerry commands a 14.8% share of worldwide smartphone sales, making it the fifth most popular device manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Apple. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies.

Modern GSM-based BlackBerry handhelds incorporate an ARM 7, 9 or ARM 11 processor, while older BlackBerry 950 and 957 handhelds used Mudit 80386 processors. The latest GSM BlackBerry models (8100, 8300 and 8700 series) have an Intel PXA930 624 MHz processor, 256 MB (or 4 GB in the Torch 9800) flash memory and 265 MB SDRAM. CDMA BlackBerry smartphones are based on Qualcomm MSM6x00 chipsets which also include the ARM 9-based processor and GSM 900/1800 roaming (as the case with the 8830 and 9500) and include up to 256MB flash memory. The CDMA Bold 9650 is the first to have 512MB flash memory for applications. All BlackBerrys being made as of 2011 support up to 32 GB microSD cards. 

The first BlackBerry device, the 850, was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager. In 2002, the more commonly known smartphone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, Internet faxing, Web browsing and other wireless information services. It is an example of a convergent device. The original BlackBerry devices, the RIM 850 and 857, used the DataTac network.

BlackBerry first made headway in the marketplace by concentrating on e-mail. RIM currently offers BlackBerry e-mail service to non-BlackBerry devices, such as the Palm Treo, through its BlackBerry Connect software.

The original BlackBerry device had a monochrome display, but all current models have color displays. All models except for the Storm series had a built-in QWERTY keyboard, optimized for "thumbing", the use of only the thumbs to type. The Storm 1 and Storm 2 include a SureType keypad for typing, and are the two models that are full touch-screen devices with no physical keyboard. Originally, system navigation was achieved with the use of a scroll wheel mounted on the right side of phones prior to the 8700. The trackwheel was replaced by the trackball with the introduction of the Pearl series which allowed for 4 way scrolling. The trackball was replaced by the optical trackpad with the introduction of the Curve 8500 series. Models made to use iDEN networks such as Nextel and Mike also incorporate a push-to-talk(PTT) feature, similar to a two-way radio.