Blackberry 850 Introduction 1999 Location (Firefox)

Introduced at a price of , the BlackBerry 850 solved a specific pain point of the late 1990s business world: the agony of dialing into an AOL or Lotus Notes server via a hotel landline. RIM’s genius, born from the unassuming offices of Waterloo, was understanding that the killer app wasn't entertainment—it was immediacy. The 850 turned "I'll get back to you when I'm at my desk" into "I'll reply before I leave the taxi."

The BlackBerry 850’s official unveiling took place at the —a fitting venue, as it was squarely aimed at IT managers, not everyday consumers. At a time when the Palm V was a sleek organizer and the Nokia 3210 was for calls and Snake, the BlackBerry 850 looked like a puckish bar of soap, about 3 inches wide, with a tiny, backlit monochrome screen and a full QWERTY keyboard so small that users had to type with two thumbs. blackberry 850 introduction 1999 location

In the waning months of the 20th century—September 1999, to be precise—a small, unassuming device was unveiled not in the gleaming glass cathedrals of Silicon Valley, but in the buttoned-up boardrooms of Toronto and at a developer conference in Chicago. That device was the BlackBerry 850, and its introduction marked the quiet birth of a new digital obsession. Introduced at a price of , the BlackBerry