All chat clients these days have “delivered” and “seen” labels to reassure you that your message reached its intended recipient. But what if getting the message delivered was literally a matter of life and death? Enter Research in Motion or as it would later be known, BlackBerry.
In 1996 the company introduced its first product, the Inter@ctive Pager, a two-way pager built on the Mobitex data network designed for emergency services (police, ambulance, firefighters).
Another pager, the BlackBerry 850, would give rise to the iconic name – its distinctive keyboard was reminiscent of the…