BlackBerry jam

Wise Words: blackberry jam

It’s been a while since the BlackBerry won presidential approval. US President Barack Obama’s addiction to his device during the 2008 presidential election campaign certainly helped increase the number of BlackBerry thumbs (pain in the thumb caused by excessive use of a BlackBerry) and BlackBerry widows (a black widow lives most of its life without a mate, whereas a BlackBerry widow has a mate, but he’s too busy sending emails on his gadget to pay her any attention). The BlackBerry was a must-have for high-flying executives. The device was so popular that it was nicknamed "crackberry", after the drug crack, a type of cocaine.

Four years on, we have another presidential election, but BlackBerry is no longer flavour of the month. It’s in a bit of a jam.

Research in Motion (RIM), the company that created the BlackBerry, has had a lot of damaging publicity in recent years.

Last August, it was the communication tool of choice for the looters during the London riots. This was not quite the cool professional image executives want to have. For a while, it was nicknamed the “riotphone”.

In October, RIM lost its email and instant messaging service across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India and much of South America. The company said there was a “switch” problem. Customers didn’t care — many just switched devices.

Last year, RIM's share price fell 75 per cent — and its share of the US market dropped to just over 16 per cent. Google’s Android operating system is installed on 50 per cent of US smartphones, and Apple has 28 per cent of the US market.

So what’s next? The Greek–Canadian management has stepped down to make way for a German. RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have been replaced by Thorsten Heins, the current COO and former Siemens executive, who's originally from Bavaria. After taking the helm, he announced in fluent English in a corporate video his vision for the future of RIM.

Although his accent is very much “Schwarzenegger in Terminator”, his vocabulary is impressive. His performance, however, is lacklustre — and he appears to lack genuine enthusiasm or warmth. A technology firm that is up against the likes of Apple and Google needs a more upbeat CEO. The stock market was downbeat on the change at the top. RIM stocks ended the day over 8 per cent down. 

But there is still hope for the company. After all, there are over 70 million BlackBerry subscribers around the world. Which is why you might find yourself in a "BlackBerry jam" on the way to work. The expression has its roots in "traffic jam", which is used to describe a situation in which there are a lot of cars on the road that are moving slowly or not at all. If you get stuck behind someone who is moving very slowly because that person is engrossed in a BlackBerry, however, you’re in a BlackBerry jam.

In our exercise, we look at the different meanings of "jam", and at the vocabulary to describe the changes at RIM. By the way, there's no such thing as "apple jam".