The evolution of a must-have gadget

As a schoolboy, Mihal “Mike” Lazarides made iodine bombs, read all the science books in the local library and fixed televisions and stereos for “Coke and cookies.”

Today, Lazarides is the multibillionaire co-chief executive of Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the BlackBerry family of smart phones.

Toronto-based journalist Rod McQueen’s book, “BlackBerry: The Inside Story of Research in Motion” was written with the cooperation of the company and includes a foreword by Lazarides and Jim Balsillie, his co-CEO. The book tracks the rise of RIM and the BlackBerry brand.

McQueen notes that the 17-year reign of the co-CEOs has worked “because they are so different.”

Balsillie, who studied at Harvard Business School, “drives corporate strategy, business development and finance,” while Lazarides, who trained to be an engineer, is “the innovative visionary who remains amazed by his own entrepreneurial success.”

For the most part, McQueen tells the company’s story with precision, starting with Lazarides’ boyhood entrepreneurial success with a buzzer system that he sold to schools.

At high school Lazarides was told by a teacher, John Micsinszki: “Someday the person who puts wireless and computers together is really going to make something.” As McQueen puts it: “The door to his future swung open.”

During his four years at the University of Waterloo, Lazarides continued to dream up new ideas. Much to the chagrin of his parents, he dropped out in his final year to start his own company with Doug Fregin, a childhood friend.

Research in Motion was incorporated on March 7, 1984, and undertook a succession of one-off contracts for other companies.

In 1992, Balsillie joined as vice president of finance and business development. His arrival was a turning point for the company, which had been run entirely by engineers and at least once came close to missing its payroll.

RIM’s technological innovation led to the development of a product code-named Leapfrog, a wireless e-mail device that was launched in 1998 with a $100-million order from BellSouth. Soon after, RIM hired Sausalito, Calif.-based Lexicon Branding, which came up with the name BlackBerry.

The device quickly became a must-have gadget for corporate executives.

Since then, RIM has sold 75 million devices, developed partnerships with network operators in more than 170 countries, been listed on the Toronto and Nasdaq stock exchanges and become the biggest and most valuable technology company in Canada.

But, as McQueen notes, there have been bumps along the way.

He details the long and bitter patent battle RIM fought — and lost, to the tune of $612.5 million — with NTP, a patent-holding company in Arlington, Va.

McQueen captures RIM’s remarkable story with a jaunty style that sucks readers into the fascinating details.

That said, the book paints an overly rosy picture of RIM and tends to gloss over some of the challenges the company now faces from rivals such as the Apple iPhone, which gets just one mention, and the emerging raft of Google Android-powered smart phones.

Paul Taylor is the personal technology columnist for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.