Losing the Signal

I never read books about business, because I'm completely uninterested in business but I found this book interesting because RIM is Canadian, and it's a fun pastime to rag on BlackBerry lately. I do remember a time when BBM was THE THING but for a lot of the time that BB was on top, I didn't even have a cell phone - I've mostly just observed its downfall.

The gist I got about Laziridis from this book is that he, though an impressive engineer, created something that changed that game by accident, and then just continued to make shit that he thought was cool. RIM didn't take the iPhone seriously because Lazaridis didn't think that people would sacrifice battery power and reliable coverage for apps and fully functional web browsers on their phones...he hated typing on touch screens and assumed that everyone else would hate it too. He seemed confused when BB devices didn't sell well or when no one could figure out how to market them. Plus, as they were playing catch-up with Apple and Google, they sacrificed quality in trying to get new things out as fast as possible. RIM probably could have come up with some amazing things if they weren't always trying to out-do everyone else, and were able to manage their company better.

I skimmed a bunch of this book on account of I don't understand business stuff. There was something about lawsuits and the stock market that I didn't quite follow, but it sounded terribly stressful and I'm glad I'm not responsible for billions of dollars and the proper running of a company. I would for sure do something illegal by accident and possibly go to jail.

So I guess you can read this book as a business how-not-to, or you can read it like I did and snicker at terms like “email pager”.