BlackBerry
Storm 9500

Initially the BlackBerry Storm was the best-selling device the company had ever offered, selling 1 million devices in the first two months, in fact it could not keep up with demand. However issues quickly emerged with device with both the software and the hardware of the device. Existing BlackBerry owners found the large “clickable” touch screen on the Storm hard to use, particularly at the extremities of the device such as the corners and the edge of the display. The browser was also slow and unreliable. Soon customers started returning the device in large numbers with almost all of the one million BlackBerry Storm devices sold by Verizon having to be replaced. More alarmingly, even some of the replacements were having to be exchanged. In the end, the Storm, and its follow-up device, the Storm 2, proved disastrous for the company. It soured RIM’s relationship with two key partners, Verizon and Vodafone and the it arguably never recovered from the reputational damage the device inflicted with those key players.