Losing the Signal: the Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry

Publisher Marketing: In 2009 BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone market. Today that number is one percent. What went so wrong?"Losing the Signal" is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway. With unprecedented access to key players, senior executives, directors, and competitors, "Losing the Signal "unveils the remarkable rise of a company that started above a bagel shop in Ontario. At the heart of the story is an unlikely partnership between a visionary engineer, Mike Lazaridis, and an abrasive Harvard Business School grad, Jim Balsillie. Together they engineered a pioneering pocket email device that became the tool of choice for presidents and CEOs. The partnership enjoyed only a brief moment on top of the world, however. At the very moment BlackBerry was ranked the world s fastest growing company, internal feuds and chaotic growth crippled the company as it faced its gravest test: Apple and Google s entry into mobile phones. Expertly told by acclaimed journalists Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, this is an entertaining, whirlwind narrative that goes behind the scenes to reveal one of the most compelling business stories of the new century." Contributor Bio:  McNish, Jacquie JACQUIE McNISH is a senior writer with The Globe and Mail and previously The Wall Street Journal. She has won six National Newspaper Awards for her groundbreaking investigations into some of the biggest business stories of the past three decades. She is a regular host on Canadian business news station BNN and an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. She has authored three bestselling books: The Big Score: Robert Friedland, Inco and the Voisey s Bay Hustle; Wrong Way: The Fall of Conrad Black (winner of the 2005 National Business Book Award); and The Third Rail: Confronting our Pension Failures, which was co-authored by Jim Leech. In his 2005 New York Times review of Wrong Way, author Bryan Burrough praised her as long one of Canada's best business writers. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two sons. Contributor Bio:  Silcoff, Sean SEAN SILCOFF is one of the most experienced business journalists in Canada. He has led coverage of many of the most significant business stories of the past 25 years for Canada's top business publications. Silcoff is an award-winning business writer with the "Globe and Mail". During his 17-year business reporting career he has covered just about every area of business, from agriculture to the credit crisis, toys to airplane manufacturing. In his two years with the "Globe and Mail" he has won a National Newspaper Award and led the paper's coverage of BlackBerry. He is also a contributor to Report on Business Insight, the business section's signature commentary section. His 2005 series for "The National Post" on Brazilian plane-maker Embraer won an Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award and was a two-time winner of the Edward Goff Memorial Prize for Young Canadian Journalists during his career as a crime reporter. He lives in the Gatineau Hills near Ottawa with his wife and three children. Contributor Bio:  Hughes, William William Hughes is a professor of political science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon. He received his doctorate in American politics from the University of California, Davis. He has done voice-over work for radio and film and is also an accomplished jazz guitarist.