The BlackBerry smartphone has its roots in a two-way messaging device called the “Interactive Pager” released in 1995 by Research In Motion, a small hardware designer based in Waterloo, Ontario. Unlike today’s BlackBerry devices, the Interactive Pager did not work on normal cellular data networks, instead using a special-purpose wireless data network known as Mobitex. The device even looked like a pager, except that it included a small keyboard for user input.
The trademark “BlackBerry” first appeared in 1999 as the name for RIM’s end-to-end wireless email solution for corporate customers. The term “Interactive Pager” was dropped and the pager was rebranded the “RIM 950″. The form factor remained the same, though, about 3.5 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall, and it still worked only on the Mobitex network.
