The move marks the end of an era as the phones, which
sported a tiny QWERTY physical keyboard, pioneered push email and the BBM
instant messaging service.
Former US President Barack Obama, one of its most celebrated
users, made headlines in 2016 when he was asked to give up his BlackBerry and
replace it with an unnamed smartphone.
Blackberry lost favour with users with the advent of Apple's
touchscreen iPhone handsets and rival Android devices. In recent years, the
company pivoted to making cybersecurity software and embedded operating systems
for cars.
Social media was alight with tributes. One Twitter user
reminisced it was a "fabulous machine" and hoped the company's phones
would be resurrected.
In a document published in 2020, the company said it would take
steps to decommission legacy services for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS
operating systems and added devices running on them would no longer be
supported and may not be able to receive or send data, make phone calls or send
messages reliably.
A US judge on Monday rejected the company's bid to dismiss a
lawsuit claiming it defrauded shareholders by inflating the success and
profitability of smartphones using BlackBerry 10 OS, and said the class-action
case could go to trial this fall. © Reuters
0 comments:
Post a Comment