Research In Motion
Encyclopedia
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational
telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo
, Ontario
, Canada
that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. RIM provides platforms and solutions for access to information, including e-mail, voice, instant messaging, short message service (SMS), Internet and intranet-based applications and browsing. RIM’s portfolio includes the BlackBerry
wireless solution, the RIM Wireless Handheld product line, software development tools and other software and hardware. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis
, who currently serves as its co-CEO along with Jim Balsillie
.
and Ericsson
to turn the Ericsson-developed Mobitex
wireless data network into a two-way paging
and wireless
e-mail network. Pivotal in this development was the release of the Inter@ctive pager
950, which started shipping in August 1998
. About the size of a bar of soap, this device competed against the SkyTel two-way paging network developed by Motorola
.
RIM's early development was financed by Canadian institutional and venture capital investors in 1995 through a private placement in the privately-held company. Working Ventures Canadian Fund Inc. led the first venture round with a C$
5,000,000 investment with the proceeds being used to complete the development of RIM's two-way paging system hardware and software. A total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing was raised by the company prior to its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in January, 1998 under the symbol RIM.
Since then, RIM has released a variety of devices running on GSM, CDMA, and iDEN
networks. The ubiquity of these BlackBerry devices in the corporate environment and the compulsive use of its ability to quickly send and receive e-mail has earned it the nickname "Crackberry" in a reference to crack cocaine
as users feel they cannot live without it.
In 2006 Research In Motion and Information Appliance Associates reached a licensing agreement whereby RIM would offer the complete version of PocketMac
for BlackBerry to Macintosh users free of charge.
In October 2008, RIM was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers
" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's
newsmagazine.
RIM announced in February 2009 that they were expanding their global operations by opening an office and training facility in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Just across the Harbour Bridge, ten minutes from the Sydney CBD, the new RIM offices were formally unveiled by Mr Thomas A.MacDonald, Consul General of Canada, at a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the New South Wales Government and North Sydney Council, as well as RIM’s partners and customers. The new office features training facilities, a research and development centre, a strategic partner marketing centre and technical support services. Total workforce provides 12,000 jobs world wide.
In June 2009 RIM has announced they were acquiring Dash Navigation
, makers of the Dash Express
. In August 2009, RIM acquired Torch Mobile, enabling the inclusion of a Webkit
-based browser on their Blackberry devices.
On August 18, 2009, Fortune Magazine named RIM as the fastest growing company in the world with a growth of 84% in profits over three years despite the recession.
On March 26, 2010, the company announced acquisition of BlackBerry applications developer Viigo, a Toronto-based company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
RIM reached an agreement with Harman International on April 12, 2010, for RIM to acquire QNX
Software Systems. "RIM is excited about the planned acquisition of QNX Software Systems and we look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM. "In addition to our interests in expanding the opportunities for QNX in the automotive sector and other markets, we believe the planned acquisition of QNX will also bring other value to RIM in terms of supporting certain unannounced product plans for intelligent peripherals, adding valuable intellectual property to RIM's portfolio and providing long-term synergies for the companies based on the significant and complementary OS expertise that exists within the RIM and QNX teams today."
On September 27, 2010, RIM announced the long rumoured BlackBerry PlayBook
tablet computer
. The BlackBerry PlayBook was officially released to US and Canadian consumers on April 19, 2011.
As of May 2010, RIM OS held 10.4% of the smartphone
operating system market.
On Jun 30, 2011, an investor push for the company to split its dual-CEO structure was unexpectedly withdrawn after an agreement was made with RIM. RIM announced that after discussions between the two groups, Northwest & Ethical Investments will withdraw its shareholder proposal before RIM's annual meeting.
In June 2011, the company has announced the prediction of Q1 2011 revenue which will drop for the first time in nine years and also unveiled plans to reduce jobs. It is followed by the market which the stock dropped to its lowest level since 2006.
Since June 2008 to June 2011, RIM's shareholders lost almost $70 billion or 82 percent as the biggest decline among communications-equipment providers, from $83 billion at 3 years before to current $13.6 billion.
In July 2011, the company axed 2,000 jobs, the biggest lay-off in its history. The lay-off reduced the workforce of the company by around 11% in one stroke from 19,000 to 17,000.
In September 2011, RIM decided to build assembly factory (hardware) in Malaysia rather in Indonesia
, but Indonesia will become the Blackberry's application and market research center (software).
On October 10, 2011, RIM experienced one of the worst service outages in the company's history. Tens of millions of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America were unable to receive or send emails and BBM messages through their phones. The outage was caused as a result of a core switch failure, "A transition to a back-up switch did not function as tested, causing a large backlog of data, RIM said." Service was restored Thursday 13 October, with RIM announcing a $100 package of free premium apps for users and enterprise support extensions
In 2001, Research In Motion sued competitor Glenayre Electronics Inc for patent infringement
, partly in response to an earlier infringement suit filed by Glenayre against RIM. RIM sought an injunction to prevent Glenayre from infringing on RIM's "Single Mailbox Integration" patent. The suit was ultimately settled in favour of RIM.
In June 2002, Research In Motion filed suit against 2000 start-up and competitor Good Technology
. RIM filed additional complaints through-out the year. In March 2004, Good agreed to a licensing deal, thereby settling the outstanding litigation.
On September 16, 2002, Research In Motion was awarded a patent pertaining to keyboard design on hand-held e-mail devices. Upon receiving the patent, it proceeded to sue Handspring
over its Treo device. Handspring eventually agreed to license RIM's patent and avoid further litigation in November of the same year.
During the appeals, RIM discovered new prior art
that raised a "substantial new question of patentability" and filed for a reexamination
of the NTP patents in the United States Patent and Trademark Office
. That reexamination was conducted separately to the court cases for infringement. In February 2006, the USPTO rejected all of NTP's claims in three disputed patents. NTP has appealed the decision, and the reexamination process is still outgoing as of July 2006 (See NTP, Inc. for details).
On March 3, 2006, RIM announced that it had settled its BlackBerry patent dispute with NTP. Under the terms of the settlement, RIM has agreed to pay NTP US$612.5 million in a “full and final settlement of all claims.” In a statement, RIM said that “all terms of the agreement have been finalized and the litigation against RIM has been dismissed by a court order this afternoon. The agreement eliminates the need for any further court proceedings or decisions relating to damages
or injunctive relief.”
On July 17, 2003, while still embroiled in litigation with NTP and Good Technology, RIM filed suit against Xerox in the U.S. District of Hartford, Connecticut. The suit was filed in response to discussions about patents held by Xerox that might affect RIM's business, and also asks that patents held by Xerox be invalidated.
On May 1, 2006, RIM was sued by Visto
for infringement of four patents. Though the patents were widely considered invalid and in the same veins as the NTP patents – with a judgement going against Visto in the U.K. – RIM settled the lawsuit in the United States on July 16, 2009, with RIM agreeing to pay Visto US$267.5M plus other undisclosed terms.
On January 22, 2010, Motorola
requested that all BlackBerry smartphones be banned from being imported into the United States for infringing upon five of Motorola's patents. Their patents for "early-stage innovations", including UI, power management and WiFi, are in question. RIM countersued later the same day, alleging anti-competitive behaviour and that Motorola had broken a 2003 licensing agreement by refusing to extend licensing terms beyond 2008. The companies settled out of court on June 11, 2010.
company and division of Research In Motion (RIM) founded in 1996 by Arvel Hathcock produces and sells the MDaemon email server for Windows. Alt-N Technologies develops email messaging and security server
applications for the medium and small business communities.
Alt-N Technologies’ products are sold and supported internationally through a network of distributors and resellers.
, Ron Mullin and Scott Vanstone
.
The Certicom intellectual property portfolio includes over 350 patents and patents pending worldwide that cover key aspects of elliptic curve cryptography
(ECC): software optimizations, efficient hardware implementations, methods to enhance the security, and various cryptographic protocols.
The National Security Agency
(NSA) has licensed 26 of Certicom's ECC patents as a way of clearing the way for the implementation of elliptic curves to protect US and allied government information.
Certicom's current customers include General Dynamics
, Motorola
, Oracle
, Research In Motion and Unisys
.
On January 23, 2009, VeriSign
entered into an agreement to acquire Certicom.
Research In Motion put in a counter-offer, which was deemed superior. VeriSign did not match this offer, and so Certicom announced an agreement to be acquired by RIM,. Upon the completion of this transaction, Certicom became a wholly owned subsidiary of RIM, and was de-listed from the Toronto Stock Exchange on March 25, 2009.
and other assets to Research In Motion for $50 million.
, Sweden. Founded in February 2002 by Mikael Tellhed, Ludvig Linge, Paul Blomdahl, Karl-Anders Johansson, Per Grimberg, and Hampus Jakobsson. TAT started out as a hobby project and for the first year the company worked with TV commercials, animation, post production for film, consultancy services within image compression for embedded systems, and interactive art.TAT was acquired by Research in Motion
(RIM), the maker of the Blackberry smartphone, on December 2, 2010. They are set to bring "their talent to the BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphone platforms."
During the second year the company got traction in the mobile industry and started to employ people. Focus shifted completely to user interfaces, especially licensing technology for rendering and structuring of the user interface. As of September 2010 over 180 employees work for TAT at the offices in Sweden, South Korea, the United States, and the newly opened office in Japan. TAT works with some of the biggest mobile brands such as Samsung
, Sony Ericsson
, Orange
and, Motorola
. TAT also license software to other industries such as automotive and consumer electronics.
Some of the founding members have a history from the demo group
Yodel. This group made a contribution to The Party 1996 called The Astonishing Tribe.
"http://tecno.americaeconomia.com/noticias/rim-compra-irlandesa-newbay." October 7, 2011
. Furthermore, an internal review found that hundreds of stock-option grants had been backdated, timed to a low share price to make them more lucrative.
In January 2009, Canadian regulators stated that they were seeking a record penalty of $80 million USD from the top two executives, Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. Furthermore, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has pushed for Balsillie to pay the bulk of any penalty and relinquish his seat on RIM's board of directors for a period of time.
On February 5, 2009, several executives and directors of Research In Motion agreed to pay the penalties to settle an investigation into the backdating of stock options. The Ontario Securities Commission approved the arrangement in a closed-door meeting.
Under the terms of a settlement agreement with the OSC, RIM co-chief executive officers Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, as well as chief operating officer Dennis Kavelman, will jointly pay a total of $68-million (CDN) to RIM to reimburse the company for losses from the backdating and for the costs of a long internal investigation. The three are also required to pay $9-million (CDN) to the OSC.
Mr. Balsillie will step down from RIM's board of directors for a year, but will remain in his executive role.
’s re-launched Guide to Greener Electronics. The guide ranks manufacturers according to their policies and practices to reduce their impact on the climate, produce greener products, and make their operations more sustainable. RIM appeared for the first time in 2011 with a score of 1.6 out of 10. In the Energy section the company was criticized by Greenpeace for not seeking external verification for its data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for not having a clean electricity plan and for not setting a target to reduce GHG emissions.
RIM performed badly in the Products category, only scoring points for the energy efficiency of its products as it reports that its Blackberry charger gets the European Commission IPP 4-star rating. Meanwhile on Sustainable Operations the company scored well for its stance on conflict minerals and received points for its Paper Procurement Policy and its mail-back programme for e-waste. Nevertheless, RIM was given no points for the management of GHG emissions from its supply chain.
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is the smallest of the three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, and is adjacent to the city of Kitchener....
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market. RIM provides platforms and solutions for access to information, including e-mail, voice, instant messaging, short message service (SMS), Internet and intranet-based applications and browsing. RIM’s portfolio includes the BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
wireless solution, the RIM Wireless Handheld product line, software development tools and other software and hardware. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis
Mike Lazaridis
Mihalis "Mike" Lazaridis , OC, O.Ont is a Greek Canadian businessman. He is the founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion , which created and manufactures the BlackBerry wireless handheld device. He is also a former chancellor of the University of Waterloo, and an Officer of the Order of Canada...
, who currently serves as its co-CEO along with Jim Balsillie
Jim Balsillie
James Laurence "Jim" Balsillie is a Canadian businessman and co-CEO of the Canadian company Research In Motion. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a private political organization...
.
History
Prior to the manufacture of the BlackBerry, RIM worked with RAM Mobile DataRAM Mobile Data
RAM Mobile Data was originally founded by RAM Broadcasting Corporation as American Mobile Data Communications, Inc. in 1988. The name of the company was changed to RAM Mobile Data in 1989. RAM Mobile Data was the U.S...
and Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
to turn the Ericsson-developed Mobitex
Mobitex
Mobitex is an OSI based open standard, national public access wireless packet-switched data network. Mobitex puts great emphasis on safety and reliability with its use by military, police, firefighters and ambulance services. Mobitex was developed in the beginning of the 1980s by the Swedish...
wireless data network into a two-way paging
Pager
A pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call...
and wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
e-mail network. Pivotal in this development was the release of the Inter@ctive pager
Inter@ctive Paging
The Inter@ctive Pager, introduced in 1995 by Research In Motion , allowed users to receive and send messages over the internet via a wireless data network known as Mobitex. The US Operator of Mobitex, RAM Mobile Data operated the network and introduced the Inter@ctive Pager service as RAMfirst...
950, which started shipping in August 1998
1998 in science
The year 1998 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* January–September – Cosmologists from the Supernova Cosmology Project led by Saul Perlmutter and the High-z Supernova Search Team led by Adam Riess and Brian...
. About the size of a bar of soap, this device competed against the SkyTel two-way paging network developed by Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
.
RIM's early development was financed by Canadian institutional and venture capital investors in 1995 through a private placement in the privately-held company. Working Ventures Canadian Fund Inc. led the first venture round with a C$
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
5,000,000 investment with the proceeds being used to complete the development of RIM's two-way paging system hardware and software. A total of C$30,000,000 in pre-IPO financing was raised by the company prior to its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in January, 1998 under the symbol RIM.
Since then, RIM has released a variety of devices running on GSM, CDMA, and iDEN
Iden
For other uses of the word, see Iden The Iden was an English automobile manufactured from 1904 until 1907. Designed by George Iden, formerly of Daimler, they were four-cylinder 10/17 hp and 25/35 hp shaft-driven cars; each came with "Idens's frictionless radial gearbox"....
networks. The ubiquity of these BlackBerry devices in the corporate environment and the compulsive use of its ability to quickly send and receive e-mail has earned it the nickname "Crackberry" in a reference to crack cocaine
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
as users feel they cannot live without it.
In 2006 Research In Motion and Information Appliance Associates reached a licensing agreement whereby RIM would offer the complete version of PocketMac
PocketMac
PocketMac Software is a small software developer and publisher that produces software primarily for Macintosh-based systems. The company, founded in 2000, is run by two brothers, Terence Goggin and Tim Goggin. It is headquartered in San Diego, CA-History:...
for BlackBerry to Macintosh users free of charge.
In October 2008, RIM was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers
Canada's Top 100 Employers
Canada's Top 100 Employers is an annual competition that recognizes the best places in Canada to work. First held in 1999, the project aims to single out the employers that lead their industries in offering exceptional working conditions and progressive human resources policies. Winners are...
" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
newsmagazine.
RIM announced in February 2009 that they were expanding their global operations by opening an office and training facility in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Just across the Harbour Bridge, ten minutes from the Sydney CBD, the new RIM offices were formally unveiled by Mr Thomas A.MacDonald, Consul General of Canada, at a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the New South Wales Government and North Sydney Council, as well as RIM’s partners and customers. The new office features training facilities, a research and development centre, a strategic partner marketing centre and technical support services. Total workforce provides 12,000 jobs world wide.
In June 2009 RIM has announced they were acquiring Dash Navigation
Dash Navigation
Dash Navigation was a start-up based in Mountain View, California that produce devices and software for in car navigation systems. Their first product is Dash Express. In January, Dash Express won "Best of CES" awards from both CNET and LAPTOP Magazine...
, makers of the Dash Express
Dash Express
The Dash Express is an Internet-enabled personal navigation device manufactured by Dash Navigation Dash is different from other navigation devices because it transmits information using a GPRS connection back to Dash, which enhances traffic routing...
. In August 2009, RIM acquired Torch Mobile, enabling the inclusion of a Webkit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
-based browser on their Blackberry devices.
On August 18, 2009, Fortune Magazine named RIM as the fastest growing company in the world with a growth of 84% in profits over three years despite the recession.
On March 26, 2010, the company announced acquisition of BlackBerry applications developer Viigo, a Toronto-based company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
RIM reached an agreement with Harman International on April 12, 2010, for RIM to acquire QNX
QNX
QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
Software Systems. "RIM is excited about the planned acquisition of QNX Software Systems and we look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems," said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM. "In addition to our interests in expanding the opportunities for QNX in the automotive sector and other markets, we believe the planned acquisition of QNX will also bring other value to RIM in terms of supporting certain unannounced product plans for intelligent peripherals, adding valuable intellectual property to RIM's portfolio and providing long-term synergies for the companies based on the significant and complementary OS expertise that exists within the RIM and QNX teams today."
On September 27, 2010, RIM announced the long rumoured BlackBerry PlayBook
BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a tablet computer by Research In Motion , best known for the BlackBerry smartphone. It competes against Apple's iPad and a slew of Android-powered tablets....
tablet computer
Tablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
. The BlackBerry PlayBook was officially released to US and Canadian consumers on April 19, 2011.
As of May 2010, RIM OS held 10.4% of the smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
operating system market.
On Jun 30, 2011, an investor push for the company to split its dual-CEO structure was unexpectedly withdrawn after an agreement was made with RIM. RIM announced that after discussions between the two groups, Northwest & Ethical Investments will withdraw its shareholder proposal before RIM's annual meeting.
In June 2011, the company has announced the prediction of Q1 2011 revenue which will drop for the first time in nine years and also unveiled plans to reduce jobs. It is followed by the market which the stock dropped to its lowest level since 2006.
Since June 2008 to June 2011, RIM's shareholders lost almost $70 billion or 82 percent as the biggest decline among communications-equipment providers, from $83 billion at 3 years before to current $13.6 billion.
In July 2011, the company axed 2,000 jobs, the biggest lay-off in its history. The lay-off reduced the workforce of the company by around 11% in one stroke from 19,000 to 17,000.
In September 2011, RIM decided to build assembly factory (hardware) in Malaysia rather in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, but Indonesia will become the Blackberry's application and market research center (software).
On October 10, 2011, RIM experienced one of the worst service outages in the company's history. Tens of millions of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America were unable to receive or send emails and BBM messages through their phones. The outage was caused as a result of a core switch failure, "A transition to a back-up switch did not function as tested, causing a large backlog of data, RIM said." Service was restored Thursday 13 October, with RIM announcing a $100 package of free premium apps for users and enterprise support extensions
Growth
| Year | Sales | Operating Income | Net Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 294,000,000 | (58,000,000) | (28,000,000) |
| 2003 | 307,000,000 | (64,000,000) | (149,000,000) |
| 2004 | 595,000,000 | 78,000,000 | 52,000,000 |
| 2005 | 1,350,000,000 | 386,000,000 | 206,000,000 |
| 2006 | 2,066,000,000 | 617,000,000 | 375,000,000 |
| 2007 | 3,037,000,000 | 807,000,000 | 632,000,000 |
| 2008 | 6,009,000,000 | 1,731,000,000 | 1,294,000,000 |
| 2009 | 11,065,000,000 | 2,722,000,000 | 1,893,000,000 |
| 2010 | 14,953,000,000 | 3,507,000,000 | 2,457,000,000 |
| 2011 | 19,907,000,000 | 4,739,000,000 | 3,444,000,000 |
Patent litigation
Since the turn of the century, RIM has been embroiled in a series of suits relating to alleged patent infringement.In 2001, Research In Motion sued competitor Glenayre Electronics Inc for patent infringement
Patent infringement
Patent infringement is the commission of a prohibited act with respect to a patented invention without permission from the patent holder. Permission may typically be granted in the form of a license. The definition of patent infringement may vary by jurisdiction, but it typically includes using or...
, partly in response to an earlier infringement suit filed by Glenayre against RIM. RIM sought an injunction to prevent Glenayre from infringing on RIM's "Single Mailbox Integration" patent. The suit was ultimately settled in favour of RIM.
In June 2002, Research In Motion filed suit against 2000 start-up and competitor Good Technology
Good Technology
Good Technology is a company providing Push e-mail and mobile device management and security products for mobile phones.-History:The company started out building an MP3 attachment to the Handspring Visor under the brand of SpringThings. It later offered its own device to provide wireless email...
. RIM filed additional complaints through-out the year. In March 2004, Good agreed to a licensing deal, thereby settling the outstanding litigation.
On September 16, 2002, Research In Motion was awarded a patent pertaining to keyboard design on hand-held e-mail devices. Upon receiving the patent, it proceeded to sue Handspring
Handspring (company)
Handspring was a maker of Palm OS-based Visor- and Treo-branded personal digital assistants. It was run by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, the original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing, after they became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking...
over its Treo device. Handspring eventually agreed to license RIM's patent and avoid further litigation in November of the same year.
During the appeals, RIM discovered new prior art
Prior art
Prior art , in most systems of patent law, constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality...
that raised a "substantial new question of patentability" and filed for a reexamination
Reexamination
In United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby a third party or inventor can have a patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable...
of the NTP patents in the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
. That reexamination was conducted separately to the court cases for infringement. In February 2006, the USPTO rejected all of NTP's claims in three disputed patents. NTP has appealed the decision, and the reexamination process is still outgoing as of July 2006 (See NTP, Inc. for details).
On March 3, 2006, RIM announced that it had settled its BlackBerry patent dispute with NTP. Under the terms of the settlement, RIM has agreed to pay NTP US$612.5 million in a “full and final settlement of all claims.” In a statement, RIM said that “all terms of the agreement have been finalized and the litigation against RIM has been dismissed by a court order this afternoon. The agreement eliminates the need for any further court proceedings or decisions relating to damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
or injunctive relief.”
On July 17, 2003, while still embroiled in litigation with NTP and Good Technology, RIM filed suit against Xerox in the U.S. District of Hartford, Connecticut. The suit was filed in response to discussions about patents held by Xerox that might affect RIM's business, and also asks that patents held by Xerox be invalidated.
On May 1, 2006, RIM was sued by Visto
Visto
Visto was a private US company located in Redwood Shores, CA. Visto sold Push e-mail products for mobile phones. The company acquired Good Technology in 2009 and renamed itself for the acquired company.- Visto the Company :...
for infringement of four patents. Though the patents were widely considered invalid and in the same veins as the NTP patents – with a judgement going against Visto in the U.K. – RIM settled the lawsuit in the United States on July 16, 2009, with RIM agreeing to pay Visto US$267.5M plus other undisclosed terms.
On January 22, 2010, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
requested that all BlackBerry smartphones be banned from being imported into the United States for infringing upon five of Motorola's patents. Their patents for "early-stage innovations", including UI, power management and WiFi, are in question. RIM countersued later the same day, alleging anti-competitive behaviour and that Motorola had broken a 2003 licensing agreement by refusing to extend licensing terms beyond 2008. The companies settled out of court on June 11, 2010.
Alt-N Technologies
Alt-N Technologies, Ltd., a software developmentSoftware development
Software development is the development of a software product...
company and division of Research In Motion (RIM) founded in 1996 by Arvel Hathcock produces and sells the MDaemon email server for Windows. Alt-N Technologies develops email messaging and security server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
applications for the medium and small business communities.
Alt-N Technologies’ products are sold and supported internationally through a network of distributors and resellers.
Software products
- MDaemon – Multi-language SMTP/POP3 mail server software.
- SecurityGateway – Email spam firewall server software that protects Microsoft Exchange and SMTP Servers from spam and malware.
- RelayFaxRelayFaxRelayFax is fax server software for Windows computer systems, produced by Alt-N Technologies.Available end-user interfaces include standard e-mail client, virtual printer, and dedicated software. All these interfaces result in an e-mail message being sent to a dedicated mailbox on a local or...
– email-to-fax and fax-to-email serverFax serverA fax server is a system installed in a local area network server that allows computer users whose computers are attached to the LAN to send and receive fax messages...
software.
Hardware products
- MDaemon Email Server Appliance – Integrates MDaemon and SecurityPlus for MDaemon software into a single server appliance.
Industry participation
- Online Trust Alliance (OTA)
- Domain Assurance Council (DAC)
- Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)Internet Engineering Task ForceThe Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
- Messaging Anti-Abuse Working GroupMAAWGThe Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group started as a group of internet service providers, mobile network operators, telecommunications companies and infrastructure vendors and anti-spam technology vendors in early 2004. It has since expanded to include e-mail service providers and other forms of...
(MAAWG)
Certicom
Certicom Corp. is a cryptography company founded in 1985 by Gordon AgnewGordon Agnew
Gordon B. Agnew is an engineering professor at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada. Agnew's primary research interests are in the fields of encryption and data security....
, Ron Mullin and Scott Vanstone
Scott Vanstone
Scott A. Vanstone is a cryptographer who co-authored the Handbook of Applied Cryptography. He is currently on faculty at the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Mathematics and a member of the school's Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. He is also the founder of Certicom. In 1998, he was...
.
The Certicom intellectual property portfolio includes over 350 patents and patents pending worldwide that cover key aspects of elliptic curve cryptography
Elliptic curve cryptography
Elliptic curve cryptography is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. The use of elliptic curves in cryptography was suggested independently by Neal Koblitz and Victor S...
(ECC): software optimizations, efficient hardware implementations, methods to enhance the security, and various cryptographic protocols.
The National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
(NSA) has licensed 26 of Certicom's ECC patents as a way of clearing the way for the implementation of elliptic curves to protect US and allied government information.
Certicom's current customers include General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
, Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
, Research In Motion and Unisys
Unisys
Unisys Corporation , headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware, is a long established business whose core products now involves computing and networking.-History:...
.
On January 23, 2009, VeriSign
VeriSign
Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code...
entered into an agreement to acquire Certicom.
Research In Motion put in a counter-offer, which was deemed superior. VeriSign did not match this offer, and so Certicom announced an agreement to be acquired by RIM,. Upon the completion of this transaction, Certicom became a wholly owned subsidiary of RIM, and was de-listed from the Toronto Stock Exchange on March 25, 2009.
DataViz
DataViz, Inc. is a software company located in Milford, Connecticut. They sell RoadSync, and MacLinkPlus. MacLinkPlus is a Macintosh program for converting files from one format to another. RoadSync utilizes the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol to access Exchange information which includes e-mail, calendar and contact information. On September 8, 2010, they sold their office suite Documents To GoDocuments To Go
Documents To Go is an office suite for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Maemo, Blackberry OS, Symbian OS, Android, and iOS. Also, a larger-screen version would have been included with the Palm Foleo, but Palm, Inc. cancelled the device before its release...
and other assets to Research In Motion for $50 million.
The Astonishing Tribe
The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) is a company with headquarters in MalmöMalmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
, Sweden. Founded in February 2002 by Mikael Tellhed, Ludvig Linge, Paul Blomdahl, Karl-Anders Johansson, Per Grimberg, and Hampus Jakobsson. TAT started out as a hobby project and for the first year the company worked with TV commercials, animation, post production for film, consultancy services within image compression for embedded systems, and interactive art.TAT was acquired by Research in Motion
Research In Motion
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
(RIM), the maker of the Blackberry smartphone, on December 2, 2010. They are set to bring "their talent to the BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphone platforms."
During the second year the company got traction in the mobile industry and started to employ people. Focus shifted completely to user interfaces, especially licensing technology for rendering and structuring of the user interface. As of September 2010 over 180 employees work for TAT at the offices in Sweden, South Korea, the United States, and the newly opened office in Japan. TAT works with some of the biggest mobile brands such as Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
, Orange
Orange SA
Orange is the brand used by France Télécom for its mobile network operator and Internet service provider subsidiaries. It is the fifth largest telecom operator in the world, with 210 million customers . The brand was created in 1994 for Hutchison Telecom's UK mobile phone network, which was...
and, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
. TAT also license software to other industries such as automotive and consumer electronics.
Some of the founding members have a history from the demo group
Demogroup
Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene....
Yodel. This group made a contribution to The Party 1996 called The Astonishing Tribe.
JayCut
In July 2011, RIM brought on JayCut, a Sweden-based company that is an online video editor. JayCut will work with RIM to add video editing capabilities to the BlackBerry platform.Newbay
In October 2011, RIM brought on NewBay, an Irish-based company that is an online video, pics and tool for media networks editor"http://tecno.americaeconomia.com/noticias/rim-compra-irlandesa-newbay." October 7, 2011
RIM stock option scandal settlement
In 2007 Co-CEO Jim Balsillie was forced to resign as chairman as the company announced a $250-million earnings restatement relating to mistakes in how it granted stock optionsEmployee stock option
An employee stock option is a call option on the common stock of a company, issued as a form of non-cash compensation. Restrictions on the option attempt to align the holder's interest with those of the business shareholders. If the company's stock rises, holders of options generally experience a...
. Furthermore, an internal review found that hundreds of stock-option grants had been backdated, timed to a low share price to make them more lucrative.
In January 2009, Canadian regulators stated that they were seeking a record penalty of $80 million USD from the top two executives, Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. Furthermore, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has pushed for Balsillie to pay the bulk of any penalty and relinquish his seat on RIM's board of directors for a period of time.
On February 5, 2009, several executives and directors of Research In Motion agreed to pay the penalties to settle an investigation into the backdating of stock options. The Ontario Securities Commission approved the arrangement in a closed-door meeting.
Under the terms of a settlement agreement with the OSC, RIM co-chief executive officers Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, as well as chief operating officer Dennis Kavelman, will jointly pay a total of $68-million (CDN) to RIM to reimburse the company for losses from the backdating and for the costs of a long internal investigation. The three are also required to pay $9-million (CDN) to the OSC.
Mr. Balsillie will step down from RIM's board of directors for a year, but will remain in his executive role.
Environmental record
In November 2011 RIM was ranked 15th out of 15 electronics manufactures in GreenpeaceGreenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
’s re-launched Guide to Greener Electronics. The guide ranks manufacturers according to their policies and practices to reduce their impact on the climate, produce greener products, and make their operations more sustainable. RIM appeared for the first time in 2011 with a score of 1.6 out of 10. In the Energy section the company was criticized by Greenpeace for not seeking external verification for its data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for not having a clean electricity plan and for not setting a target to reduce GHG emissions.
RIM performed badly in the Products category, only scoring points for the energy efficiency of its products as it reports that its Blackberry charger gets the European Commission IPP 4-star rating. Meanwhile on Sustainable Operations the company scored well for its stance on conflict minerals and received points for its Paper Procurement Policy and its mail-back programme for e-waste. Nevertheless, RIM was given no points for the management of GHG emissions from its supply chain.
Controversies
On Jun 30, 2011, an alleged anonymous senior RIM employee penned an open letter to the company's senior management. The writer's main objective was getting co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie to seriously consider his or her suggestions and complaints on the current state and future direction of the company.See also
- GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
- Apple Inc.
- HTC
- PalmPalm, Inc.Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...
- MotorolaMotorolaMotorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
- NokiaNokiaNokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
- SamsungSamsungThe Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
- Sony EricssonSony EricssonSony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
External links
- Research In Motion website
- ValueWiki Research in Motion Profile
- RIM profile at Google Finance