BlackBerry
The BlackBerry is a wireless handheld which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services.
[edit] Overview
A Canadian company, Research In Motion (RIM), developed the Blackberry in 1999. It delivers information over the wireless data networks of mobile phone service companies. BlackBerry initially focused on a proprietary e-mail service, however RIM currently offers BlackBerry e-mail service to non-BlackBerry devices, such as the Palm Treo.
Research in Motion introduced its first BlackBerry smartphone in 2002 with the Model 5810. These newer BlackBerry devices use an ARM processor and offer PDA functionality including the ability to read eBooks from some third party providers.
BlackBerry had started out manufacturing two-way pagers, but in 2000 it introduced the first wireless email device, the RIM 957. BlackBerry was successful with their devices largely because of two factors. The first was a focus on email, as that was the killer app that caused the devices to be extremely popular with professionals. The second was the keyboard design, which enabled people to actually input characters quickly for email and other purposes, without slow and inaccurate handwriting recognition or cumbersome virtual keyboards.
