As a technology manager, one of the most critical needs is for easy and accurate communications. Cellphones were not yet in general use, and until the late 1990’s, every IT group carried pagers. Those pagers simply beeped to tell you that someone needed a call back, and displayed the callback number; then you had to get to a wired phone to call in.
In 1997 a Canadian company called Research In Motion (RIM), and also an American company, Motorola, each came out with an interactive pager with a keyboard. Being always interested in new technologies, and in a position that allowed me flexibility within my own budget, I immediately requested samples of each one to test them.
What I found, was that the RIM pager was far and away the better device. It was clearly designed by people who actually needed such devices and used them personally. Just as one example: When the Motorola pager received a message, you took it off its holster, flipped open a cover, and pressed a button to open your message. When the RIM pager received a message, you took it off its holster and looked at the screen — a tiny magnet in the holster signaled to the pager that it had been removed, and triggered the message to be displayed. This small difference was huge in situations like board meetings, where it was possible to discreetly slip out the pager and glance down at the message.
There were many other advantages, which I detailed in a comparison chart, feature by feature. When I showed my little chart to the RIM salesperson, he practically begged me for a copy, saying it was better than the sales materials the company had provided!
In any case, having done my evaluation, I ordered these RIM pagers for everyone on my team. Although the company was RIM, these devices were known by what I presume had been a development code name and then became identified as this device — the Blackberry pager. [Many years later, RIM actually re-branded their company as Blackberry.]
These devices could run numerous “apps”, including email, note-taking, instant messaging, etc. The instant messaging was quite unique, and was the first instance of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger). It pioneered many of the features that we today associate with Whatsapp and the like — a notification that you message was sent, a further notification that your message arrived on the recipient’s pager, and yet a further notification that the recipient had read the message. Seeing that little “R” show up was very comforting, knowing that your message had been seen!
A few months after we started using these Blackberry pagers, I was on vacation in Florida, on a beach with the family. My pager alerted me, and it was a critical situation that I had to quickly mobilize several team members and tell them exactly how to proceed. A few months prior and I would have had to leave the beach and find a phone. But I was able to use BBM to quickly reach the needed people and explain what they had to do. The “R” notification gave me the assurance that they got the messages (no possibility of someone saying they never got the message!) and they were able to chat with me in real time with any questions. The situation was resolved quickly without me having to disrupt the family beach time! I was very impressed; it was clear to be that Blackberry was going to be a corporate fixture!
