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Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

Jacquie McNish (Author), Sean Silcoff (Author), William Hughes (Narrator),

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In 2009, BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone market. Today that number is one percent. What went so wrong?

Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.

With unprecedented access to key players, senior executives, directors, and competitors, Losing the Signal unveils the remarkable rise of a company that started above a bagel shop in Ontario. At the heart of the story is an unlikely partnership between a visionary engineer, Mike Lazaridis, and an abrasive Harvard Business School grad, Jim Balsillie. Together they engineered a pioneering pocket email device that became the tool of choice for presidents and CEOs. The partnership enjoyed only a brief moment on top of the world, however. At the very moment BlackBerry was ranked the world's fastest-growing company, internal feuds and chaotic growth crippled the company as it faced its gravest test: Apple and Google's entry into mobile phones.

Expertly told by acclaimed journalists Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, this is an entertaining, whirlwind narrative that goes behind the scenes to reveal one of the most compelling business stories of the new century.

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Product details

Audible Audiobook
Listening Length: 11 hours and 29 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Audible.com Release Date: May 26, 2015
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B00XD1CVJG
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
- #10 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Telecommunications & Sensors > Mobile & Wireless
- #30 in Books > Computers & Technology > Mobile Phones, Tablets & E-Readers > Handheld & Mobile Devices
- #37 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Computers & Technology

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Tech Historian

An amazingly good story, well told

June 20, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

The rise and fall of RIM.
RIM rode technology disruption and created a company with $20 billion/year in revenue only to see it disappear by being disrupted themselves.

Lots of lessons here.
1) Even though the CEOs were reading the "Innovators Dilemma" they still had little perspective on how rapid disruption would happen to them. And even less of an understanding what to do about it. (The attempt to integrate the QNX software into existing products is a cautionary tale of technical debt, refactoring and plain bad engineering management.) The iPhone in 2007 should have been a wake-up call to both CEOs. Yet they both fell prey to the classic "disruption always looks like a toy to the incumbents" mistake.

2) The company grew past the management skills of the founders. The insular nature of the founders, the Canadian entrepreneurial ecosystem, founder hubris and a feckless board ended any potential of a positive intervention. It took a complete meltdown to get the board to act.

3) Mike Lazaridis, the technical CEO, fell prey to the "shiny object" syndrome. He discovered new technology (QNX) that he thought obsoleted the current software that drove the Blackberry handsets (Java). But instead of figuring out how to finesse the transition, he literally abandoned the existing development team (and revenue). A great example of how not to manage a technology transition.

3) Dealing with major platform disruption usually takes radical structural changes, not new product features. The story unfolds as a slow motion car crash as the CEOs waited, way, way too long to recognize, let alone deal with it. There's a reason that turnaround CEO's downsize companies and focus on what's important. If you're the founder it's almost impossible to get rid of your favorite projects.

Only quibble others have noted. The book barely mentions the changes Heins made, and almost nothing about Chens strategy.

A great business book.

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Marc Luoma

Reveals new info and adds depth to a well-known story

July 7, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I followed the spectacular rise and quick decline of BB closely, as a consumer, a tech writer, and an investor, and I still learned a lot from 'Losing the Signal.' The story of how the founders met and ultimately became partners was well told as you realize how happenstance many of the factors leading to the partnership were: it might have not happened at all, quite easily. I was also taken with the descriptions of the early guerrilla marketing and how well it worked. I remember distinctly the first time I saw a BB and the instant tech lust for having my email available all the time. The decline of BB is perhaps a more familiar story, but 'Losing the Signal' enhances the drama with personal human stories: how the founders' genius and strengths ultimately became their downfall: the reliance on efficiency of network and battery use ignored the groundswell of desire for an always-with-me computer. A new wrinkle revealed by the book is the relationship between BB and the carriers, Verizon in particular. While Apple saw their customers as the millions of end users, BB saw Verizon as their customer, which ultimately let them ignore end-user demand. For the new ground covered, as well as the insider info which adds depth to the already-well-known material, 'Losing the Signal' is well worth your time.

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Craig Daniels

Design thinking before there was Design Thinking

September 13, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I didn't realize the amount of ingenuity and innovation that came from Blackberry. Their story is very often overlooked when considering Google or Apple with respect to design thinking/innovation, but after reading this it is very clear that Blackberry began the archetype of innovator/technical & savvy business/marketing duo that seems to work in the tech space as well as some really innovative products based on design thinking and user experience (before this was really a buzz word in the space). Although they ultimately were "beat" by the Google's and Apples, the story is fascinating to read.

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Reg Nordman

Well written, valuable to any business person and student.

July 26, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Two scrappy brilliant guys from Waterloo who set the world on fire ( after many ups and downs) by taking control of on your hip email and then created a smartphone marketplace that was eventually taken over by Apple, Android , Samsung and others. The authors did a tremendous number of interviews and got some very straight goods from the players involved. Rocket Builders was the first Canadian consultancy to use Blackberries and with our clients we were very involved from the early days right to the end. We even wrote a manual for RIM partners. owned shares for quite awhile and saw the disorder first hand. The book has many reasons for the fall, and they are all valid. I look at hubris and a particular Canadian tendency to let the technical guys run marketing, for far too long. The CEOs far outstayed their welcome as they were unable to realize (As few CEOS do) that there comes a time to hand over the reins to real enterprise managers, always long before they know, in order to grow and mature the company. Well written, valuable to any business person and student. Greta for a cross Canada flight. We wish John Shen well.

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wantoun

So much effort, research and details: it's just amazing!

June 24, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

What a well written book!!
So much research and details: it's just amazing. I'm a HUGE BlackBerry fan: at the early stages of this book I was swelled with pride at what BlackBerry had accomplished (I really didn't know they were THAT powerful) and then you kind of lose a bit of respect to the founders when you see how they handled situations. But I digress, or maybe not, the book is so well written that it makes you feel everything going on.
Moreover, beyond BlackBerry, it helps you understand the mobile world and why it is what it is today.
It's one of the very enlightening books I've read lately.

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Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry

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