'Smug' mistake made by BlackBerry that turned it from an $85,000,000,000 company to almost bankrupt

BlackBerry was once the king of smartphones, yet over a decade on the company no longer makes devices and many have put it all down to a 'smug' mistake that allowed its competition to quickly leapfrog into the lead.

Smartphones are arguably the most important part of many people's daily lives, as they function with far greater purpose than just to message and call.

Not only do countless apps allow you to do pretty much everything on your phone, but countless individuals have been able to build their careers and lives through the small screen, and you'd be hard pressed to find many people without a mini computer in their pocket nowadays.

That definitely wasn't always the case though, as phones were once far more rudimentary in their design, yet BlackBerry was arguably the company that paved the way for the future of mobiles.

The physical keyboard was one of BlackBerry's major selling points (What Laptop magazine/Future via Getty Images)

Outside of the incredibly popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) which allowed all owners of the company's phones to quickly and easily communicate with each other - almost as a precursor to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger - BlackBerry was also the first gadget to popularize sending more than just texts on your phone.

Tech writer Jonathan Margolis explained in the Guardian that communicating via email on your phone was once considered a complete novelty: "I was in New York working on a book, and I noticed everyone had these things called BlackBerrys.

"People were telling me they could send emails, and I remember thinking 'No, you must be mistaken, you're sending SMS text messages'. But a friend sent me an email from their phone, and I had to go home and pick it up on my PC. It was incredible."

This, alongside the recognizable QWERTY keyboard underneath the screen was what made BlackBerry the king of smartphones at the time, but they were quickly overtaken by other companies due to 'smug' behavior.

BlackBerry phones were quickly overtaken by Samsung and Apple alternatives (Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images)

The company naively thought that people would favor the physical keyboard of their device over the 'newer' touch screen design of Samsung and Apple products - but we all know now how that turned out.

In September 2011 it was reported that BlackBerry had over 85 million users worldwide, yet it's now been nearly a decade since the company last released a new phone, and in 2022 all servers were also been shut off.

It's definitely something to think about next time you pick up your iPhone, as history could have been very different had BlackBerry been a bit quicker - or more willing - to change in the face of strong competition.