Sean Silcoff Books
Sean Silcoff is a business writer for The Globe and Mail with extensive experience covering technology and corporate affairs.
Known for: Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
Books by Sean Silcoff
Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
Losing the Signal is the inside story of one of the most dramatic booms and busts in modern business history. In this deeply reported narrative, Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff trace how Research In Motion, later known as BlackBerry, rose from a small Canadian technology company into the maker of the world’s most addictive business device—and then unraveled with startling speed. At the center are two powerful, mismatched leaders: Mike Lazaridis, the engineering genius obsessed with elegant wireless technology, and Jim Balsillie, the relentless strategist who pushed BlackBerry onto the global stage. Their partnership built an empire, but their differences also exposed the company’s deepest weaknesses. What makes this book especially valuable is its combination of boardroom drama, technological detail, and strategic insight. Drawing on exclusive interviews, internal records, and years of business reporting, McNish and Silcoff show how success can blind even brilliant companies to changing consumer behavior, platform shifts, and internal dysfunction. This is more than a corporate postmortem. It is a vivid lesson in leadership, innovation, ego, and the danger of mistaking past strengths for future advantages.
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The Spark in Waterloo
Great companies often begin not with a business plan, but with an obsession. For Mike Lazaridis, that obsession was wireless communication—how information could move instantly, invisibly, and reliably across the air. In Waterloo, Ontario, far from Silicon Valley’s spotlight, Lazaridis immersed himse...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
The Visionary and the Strategist
Many iconic businesses are built by tension, not harmony. BlackBerry’s rise depended on the uneasy partnership between Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. Lazaridis was the inventor: cerebral, product-focused, and driven by technical excellence. Balsillie was the operator and dealmaker: aggressive, po...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
How BlackBerry Solved a Real Pain
Products become indispensable when they remove a major frustration from everyday life. BlackBerry’s early breakthrough was not simply inventing a smartphone; it was solving the problem of mobile email better than anyone else. At a time when laptops were bulky, wireless data was unreliable, and most ...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
From Niche Device to Global Empire
Success becomes dangerous when it starts to feel like inevitability. Once BlackBerry proved itself in business circles, RIM expanded rapidly across corporations, governments, and international markets. The brand became synonymous with productivity, status, and secure communication. At its peak, Blac...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
When Success Turns Into Blindness
The greatest threat to a market leader is often not competition itself, but the belief that competition is misreading the market. BlackBerry’s internal tensions grew sharper as the smartphone industry evolved. The company’s leaders disagreed on strategy, product direction, and acquisitions. The co-C...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
The iPhone Changed the Game
Industries do not collapse all at once; they are redefined by a new logic. The arrival of the iPhone was not merely a product launch for BlackBerry to answer—it was a shift in what a phone was for. Apple transformed the smartphone from a communication tool centered on email and efficiency into a sof...
From Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
About Sean Silcoff
Sean Silcoff is a business writer for The Globe and Mail with extensive experience covering technology and corporate affairs.
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Sean Silcoff is a business writer for The Globe and Mail with extensive experience covering technology and corporate affairs.
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