BlackBerry: The Inside Story of Research in Motion

I never owned a Crackberry, so this was kind of a peripheral tale to my own life. Rod McQueen's telling of RIM's story left criticality at the door, to the point that his "BlackBerry" borders on corporate propaganda. Not knowing any of the tale, however, I still found the read enjoyable. I had no idea that it was RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis who'd started the Perimeter Institute. I also had no idea that RIM's history stretched back to 1984 and that the BlackBerry was only the last in a long series of successes. Of course, in 2010 when the book was written the author had no idea that the BlackBerry would be the last - and that founder Lazaridis and co-CEO Balsillie would soon be out of the company, which abandoned "Research" to call themselves after their most famous brand: BlackBerry. McQueen mentions the iPhone in the closing chapter only in passing - in an aside about how foolish pundits are for believing that any product could possibly be a BlackBerry killer. The fact that the iPhone was just that I just couldn't keep out of my mind throughout the read. The story of RIM was one of success building on top of success after success, until it wasn't. This book, written at their apex, seemed out of character with reality that would soon overtake them. The dangers of building a company around a single product are made manifest in revenue statistics that the author no doubt included because of the impressive growth of the market for that single product.