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Tag: BlackBerry

  • Meet BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis

    Meet BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis

    Blackberry’nin Kurucusu İstanbul doğumlu Lazaridis şirketteki görevini bırakıyor.

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    Mike Lazaridis, the co-founder of BlackBerry (formerly known as Research In Motion), is leaving the company as vice chairman and board director. Here are some biographical details on him.

    Name: Mike Lazaridis

    Age: 52

    Born: March 14, 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey

    Hometown: Windsor, Ontario, since moving to Canada as a kid in 1966.

    Education: Attended University of Waterloo in electrical engineering. Dropped out to start RIM. Later, While leading RIM, he served as the school’s chancellor.

    Family: Married with two kids.

    Career:

    * Invented BlackBerry and co-founded RIM in 1984, during his last year at college.

    * Stepped down as co-CEO in January 2012, became vice chairman and board director.

    * Leaving RIM on May 1.

    * Recently co-founded a $100 million venture capital fund called Quantum Valley Investments, to focus on the power of quantum computing.

    Community:

    * Founded the Quantum-Nano Centre in Waterloo in 2012.

    * Founded the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo in 2002.

    * Established the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in 2000.

    * Has spent $270 million in the community, including $170 million on Perimeter.

    Early achiever: He won a prize at age 12 for reading every science book in the Windsor Public Library.

    The Arts: Won Academy Award and Emmy Award for technical achievements for developing a high-speed bar-code reader that has helped speed up film editing.

    Quote: “I’m very proud of what we built at RIM together. I believe I’m leaving the company in good hands.”

    Wealth: Lazaridis’ stake in RIM was worth more than $3 billion at its peak in 2008, according to Forbes magazine, but the value has fallen to about $440 million amid the company’s declining stock price.

    via Meet BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis – Times Of India.

  • BlackBerry services collapse again

    BlackBerry services collapse again

    blogsblackberry 1958773cBlackBerry users have been cut off from online services again today, after RIM, the Canadian firm behind the smartphone brand, said it had fixed the problems that caused an outage on Monday that lasted up to 20 hours.

    Users have once again taken to Twitter to vent their frustration, with many pledging to switch to an iPhone or Android device.

    A spokesman for RIM declined to comment on the latest technical failure, which struck at around 1PM.

    It followed a statement by the firm on its official Twitter account this morning that said “BlackBerry services have been restored”.

    Once again users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been affected. All three regions are served by a RIM data centre in Slough, Berkshire.

    A spokesman for the mobile network O2 said its BlackBerry users were unable to access the internet, or sent emails or BBM instant messages.

    The Bahraini network Batelco confirmed the renewed problems via Twitter.

    “Bahrain is experiencing service difficulties with Blackberry,” it said.

    “RIM is currently working on solving the issue. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

    Bob Collymore, of the Kenyan network Safaricom, said: “RIM has advised us that the BlackBerry service in EMEA is down again.

    “They are working to fix it but not sure when solution will be found.”

    The latest crash appeared to be the last straw for many users.

    Rob Flello, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, said: “Blackberry stopped working again – looks like I will be trading it in for an iPhone!!”

    RIM has also been criticised for its public response to the failures. It only acknowledged the yesterday’s crash after users had been without services for several hours and it has made no statement on the cause.

    The Telegraph