My first relationship with Blackberry device happened some time in 2007. I heard about Blackberry before as a business handset, but it never came across my mind to have it until gmail support became available. I went to a telco outlet in Singapore, got myself a Blackberry Curve and signed up for BIS (Blackberry Internet Services), an additional monthly charge on top of my voice and data plan. BIS was a new option, in addition to BES (Blackberry Enterprise Servers) that RIM, Blackberry maker, was offering, basically its first foray into consumer market. A few hours after I left the outlet, my handset was set up and some new emails from gmail server started flowing in. Proudly I crowed about it to my friends that finally I got my hands on truly push email device. I even went to some extent explaining the difference between “push” and “pull” email retrieving methods, making myself an unofficial blackberry ambassador.

I was delighted beyond words of my new toy. Excited to see that blinking led and hear a beep that shows some emails are coming in. I greedily roamed my fingers over the Curve keyboard, the best of QWERTY at that time, and started typing my reply. My response time to email was suddenly reduced to a few minutes. It was limited to gmail though. Working in government-linked company producing some equipments for ministry of defence, the only way to access email was by using my laptop, equipped with proprietary VPN.

A few months to one year later, Blackberry’s venture into consumer market hit its momentum and accelerated significantly. The list of contacts in my Blackberry Messenger (BBM) was increasing. Not only replying email, I similarly found myself busy chatting in BBM. BBM was the best way to connect with my friends and relatives in Indonesia, the country where I came from.

Blackberry was proliferating in Indonesia steadily and fast, which is lucrative market for RIM until now, owing to its large population. At the peak of Blackberry popularity, you hardly saw anyone without this device in his hand. People exchanged PIN and stayed in continuous touch in BBM. I was riding in its popularity to keep in touch with my customers. God knows how many business deals and prospects I got by using it. Once I said to my Malaysian colleague that if you wanted to win business in Indonesia, you had to fix up yourself with a Blackberry. He took my advice and he admitted a few months later that I was spot on. There was a time when I ran into someone and the person asked for my BBM PIN with promise to pick up where we left off. He added my PIN in his BBM, I accepted it, then we were connected. Then, I just realised that we didn’t know each other’s names. To which, he commented sheepishly, “It’s ok, when we get each other’s PIN, eventually we will know each other’s names from the status. But not the other way around.” My jaw dropped to the floor, and like it or not, it is true!

My intimacy with Blackberry was carried over when I changed job to a major Telco in Singapore. I got the company-owned Blackberry Curve linked up to the company’s BES server. Unfortunately, it could only receive the company’s emails, not my personal gmail and yahoo. I couldn’t install any apps besides what were allowed by the IT Dept. So, I kept my own blackberry until I realised I pretty much look like Blackberry slinger or cowboy with two pistols on the hip. I passed it on to my wife, who was becoming another blackberry aficionado.

In 2008, thanks to the company’s blackberry who didn’t allow me to access my personal emails and other apps, my wife gave me her new iPhone 3G saying that it wasn’t up to her expectation as her Blackberry was. I fell in love with it instantly. When people said that iPhone was the marriage between art and technology, I couldn’t agree more. I finally found a device that could do many things in an amazing way. One thing was still lacking though, an instant messaging as powerful as BBM. From then on, I kept my iPhone on the left and Blackberry Curve on the right pockets of my pants.

Two years passed by, my company replaced the Curve with Bold. It was similar in form factor with more powerful engine under the hood. I was still using my iPhone 3G too for other fun stuffs. Soon carrying two phones had worn me out, and my pants pockets were getting loosened out. Whatsapp, an instant messaging, for iPhone was available at that time and gained popularity. I could use my company’s email, calendar, and address books in iPhone too, thanks to Microsoft ActiveSync that allowed continuous sync with MS Exchange. I made a bold move and kissed the Blackberry good bye. I still kept it in my office drawer, however. From then on, I just relied on the one and only phone in my pocket, my iPhone 3G.

When I moved to the company I am working with until now, in the first year, I was back to iPhone and Blackberry mode again. Some of the contact persons in our main customers in Indonesia still clinched to BBM as their preferred means of communication. They didn’t use Whatsapp because it often made their Blackberry sluggish and tormented with that famous Blackberry’s rotating sand clock. This wasn’t for long, as I, again, made another bold move to drop the blackberry, my gut said that this one was for good. At the same time, Blackberry started losing their market to iPhone and Android smartphones. RIM, which later changed name to Blackberry, was going south amid competition and was on the verge of an ending.

Blackberry and BBM was totally out of my mind. My wife was the last in the family who gave up on blackberry and succumbed to the Android temptation. My daughters have been loyal iPhone users since they got to know smartphone, never got their hands on Blackberry and always thought of it as things of the past, as ancient as Sir Stamford Raffles.

I ran into BBM, the famous instant messaging, again when they announced the imminent release of BBM for iPhone and Android. I was waiting eagerly for the scheduled launch in Singapore and when the minute hand hit midnight, I scrambled to my iPhone and frantically searched the app store for it. I found it and downloaded it. It was such pain in the butt to get it up and running. The message said the server got problem, etc. I got it running eventually. Lucky me because, in the next morning, the app was pulled out from Apple App store. It never got into Android Play Store at all. Blackberry was putting their fingers on the fake Android BBM which were downloaded by millions and caused their server to crash.

I am using BBM on iPhone and it still working well until now. My BBM contacts list is getting longer now as I am adding more PINs. I got in touch again virtually with some friends who stubbornly didn’t get around to using Whatsapp, Line, Viber, and what have you. Their reasons, as I mentioned before, are simply because these apps don’t get along well with their devices. They are the Blackberry dieharders and will remain to be, I am sure. These BBM lovers and BB keyboards devotees are the unique market that Blackberry may have failed to keep and entertain in the long run.

I hope things turn out well with Blackberry for them to stay cool and carry on.