the BlackBerry craze

the BlackBerry craze

You know it and I know you know it too but that don’t mean I don’t know it too because you are not sure I know it. Don’t get yourself confused. It’s nothing you’ve not seen or heard before. It’s the thing about the BlackBerry phones. The BlackBerry phones have stormed the Nigerian market in full force this decade. I knew the BB phones first in Nigeria early in the last decade. I say a billboard advertising the phones and I said to myself that no one would patronise them. I guess I was right the billboard was put down only to be replaced by another advert for Nokia phones. Then it almost dawned on me when sometime last year everyone was into the BlackBerry phones.            

If you wanted to be termed as a “big boy” or “big girl” all you have to do is have a BlackBerry phone with or without using the properties of the expensive phone. The phone which has its least price (I have ever seen) to be N20,000 is suppose to perform the following functions. The functions include pushing e-mails, 24/7 internet connection, functioning as a personal digital assistant with calendar, memo pad, address book, and task list capabilities also a powerful phone for messaging   and a lot more. Like the fact that the phone has the ability to use wireless data efficiently while using less power than other phones it has also be proven that  three BlackBerrys use the same wireless spectrum as only one other Smartphone (imagine that).

            Since 1999, BlackBerry, a line of phones just like Nokia and Samsung but of mobile e-mail and Smartphone devices have been developed and designed by a Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM). BlackBerry commands a 14.8% share of worldwide Smartphone sales which makes it the fifth most popular device manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Apple. The consumer BlackBerry Internet Service is available in 91 countries worldwide on over 500 mobile service operators using various mobile technologies. The first BlackBerry device, the Blackberry 850, was introduced in 1999 as a two-way pager. In 2002, the more commonly known Smartphone BlackBerry was released, which supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, and Internet faxing. To first make headway in the marketplace, BlackBerry started by concentrating on e-mail.

            Here is another interesting thing out of all the BlackBerry features. It’s the BlackBerry Messenger. The newer BlackBerry devices use the proprietary BlackBerry Messenger, also known as BBM, software for sending and receiving instant messages (I.Ms) through BlackBerry PIN. BlackBerry PIN is an eight character hexadecimal identification number allocated to every BlackBerry device. PINs cannot be changed manually on the device but though BlackBerry technicians are able to reset or update a PIN server-side, and are locked to each specific BlackBerry. BlackBerrys can send messages to each other using the PIN directly or by using the BlackBerry Messenger application like I mentioned earlier.

The BlackBerry Messenger as so been a thing of craziness in the Nigerian Market. No wonder the nick name "CrackBerry”. I think it’s because of its addictive personality it gives to its users. They always seem to be doing something on the phone whether it is the messaging or the mail. Something always has them hooked and glued to their phones.

 The BlackBerry Bold

The primary competitors of the BlackBerry are Smartphones running Android, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, and the iPhone respectively.

The reason I’m actually writing this excerpt is because I saw of for myself that people actually have more than one blackberry phones. On Sunday the 17^th of February I hitched a ride from church (please don’t judge me) with a couple of friends only to find out that one of them had two blackberry phones. I was perplexed and asked him if he was sick. He answered quite well to tell me he wasn’t. I asked him how he managed it and he said how easy it was for him. In his story he had a friend working in each of the networks he used. The two networks according to him are the MTN network and etisalat. Each ‘friend’ provides him with at least 1500 naira credit every month so at the end of the day, he only spend at most 3,000 naira which is the same as the amount of money he’ll spend on one of the phones. I more than surprised and not too happy about the fact that he spend that amount of money every month just to have access to key properties on the phone like the internet, the B.B messenger and so on. And so is the blackberry craze oooohhhhhhh!!!