[Phillipharryt]

Sadly phone companies cannot exist in a vacuum. In the book "Losing the Signal" there's great evidence that Blackberry faced far more pressure than merely losing market-share. Their push-based email service (the back end) previously existed as the only of its kind for phones, then Microsoft updated their version in 2006 so all other phones could have it. Blackberry lost a key differentiator.

Then there was Verizon pushing them to release phones that would work well on their new 4G networks, while Blackberrys were being optimised for 2.5G as one of their CEOs was determined to preserve the selling point of great battery life.

The companies they relied on were not letting them fall into a niche product-producer role. They would have been pushed out of the market, not even by their competitors, by their partners.

[ayewo]

"Losing the Signal" sounds like an interesting read, so adding to my reading queue.

Thanks for mentioning it.