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

Short-listed for the 2015 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year

A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book of 2015

A Best Business Book of the Year, Forbes Magazine

A Times of London Book of the Week

Best Narrative Business Book of 2015 by Strategy+Business

In 2009, BlackBerry controlled half of the smartphone market. Today that number is less than 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 store 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 in to 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.

Author: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 05/03/2016
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781250096067

About the Author

Jacquie McNish is a senior writer with the Globe and Mail and before that the Wall Street Journal. She has won seven National Newspaper Awards and is the author of several bestselling books, two of which won the National Business Book Award. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two sons.

Sean Silcoff is a business writer with the Globe and Mail and before that the National Post and Canadian Business magazine. He is a two-time National Newspaper Award winner. He lives near Ottawa with his wife and three children.


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