BlackBerry OS

The keyboard that ran the world

Shut down
19902026

BlackBerry OS powered the devices that invented mobile email, from the 1999 two-way pager to the phones that ran Wall Street and the White House, peaking near 20% of global smartphone sales in 2009. The iPhone and Android unmade it, and on 4 January 2022 BlackBerry switched off the legacy services, bricking the classics for good.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1999
  2. 19 January 1999 Launch
    BlackBerry 850 ships

    Two-way paging and push email start the dynasty.

  3. 2003
  4. 2003 Version
    The phone era begins

    BlackBerry devices add voice; the 6210 defines the form factor.

  5. 2005
  6. August 2005 Feature
    BBM launches

    BlackBerry Messenger becomes the original ticked-message obsession.

  7. 2007
  8. 29 June 2007 Incident
    The iPhone launches

    RIM leadership publicly doubts a keyboardless phone.

  9. 2009
  10. 2009 Peak
    About 20% of global smartphone sales

    Obama keeps his BlackBerry; the brand peaks culturally and commercially.

  11. 2013
  12. 30 January 2013 Version
    BlackBerry 10 arrives

    The modern rewrite lands years too late.

  13. 2015
  14. 25 September 2015 Decline
    The Priv ships with Android

    BlackBerry concedes the OS war by adopting the enemy.

  15. 2020
  16. September 2020 Shutdown announced
    End of legacy services announced

    January 2022 set as the cutoff.

  17. 2022
  18. 4 January 2022 Shutdown
    Legacy services decommissioned

    Classic BlackBerrys lose calls, texts, data and 911.

The site through time

Browse blackberry.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2022 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Research In Motion 1999–2013 Founded Waterloo, Ontario
BlackBerry Limited 2013–2022 Founded RIM renames itself after its product

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Market share (%) ▲ 20% 2009 Reported Approximate global smartphone sales share at peak

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: BlackBerry decommissioned the legacy services behind BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 on 4 January 2022; classic devices lost calling, texting, data and even 911 capability.

Our analysis: BlackBerry owned mobile email and assumed keyboards and IT departments would keep it safe from a phone without either. The iPhone moved the buying decision from CIOs to users, Android took the rest, and BB10 arrived years too late to matter.

History [edit]

The CrackBerry decade

Research In Motion of Waterloo, Ontario shipped the BlackBerry 850 in January 1999: a two-way pager that did email anywhere, on a battery that lasted forever, with a tiny thumb keyboard. It evolved into the smartphone that defined professional life in the 2000s. Push email through RIM's own network operations centre, BBM's instant messaging with delivery ticks, and security certifications no rival matched made it the device of Wall Street, law firms and governments; Barack Obama famously refused to give his up in 2009.

At its peak BlackBerry commanded roughly a fifth of global smartphone sales and tens of millions of devoted users who typed by feel. "CrackBerry" was the 2006 word of the year in Canada.

The touchscreen guillotine

RIM's leadership publicly dismissed the 2007 iPhone: no keyboard, terrible battery, corporate IT would never allow it. Every part of that analysis proved fatal. Consumers, not IT departments, now chose phones; app ecosystems became the battleground; the rushed touchscreen Storm flopped. The modern QNX-based BlackBerry 10 finally arrived in 2013, years late, and the company conceded in 2015 by shipping Android on its own hardware. In September 2020 BlackBerry announced the end: on 4 January 2022 the legacy infrastructure was decommissioned, and BlackBerry OS devices worldwide lost calls, texts, data and emergency dialling, one of the most absolute deaths any platform has had.

Similar projects

Windows Phone The tiles nobody wrote apps for 2010–2019 ICQ The messenger that gave you a number 1996–2024 MySpace A place for friends 2003–now Winamp It really whips the llama's ass 1997–2013 GeoCities Your neighborhood on the early web 1994–2009 Netscape Navigator The browser that opened the web 1994–2008

Sources [edit]

  1. BlackBerry end of life: legacy services BlackBerry 1 September 2020 [archived]
  2. BlackBerry phones will stop working January 4 NPR 3 January 2022 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).