The world of cellphones is a hugely competitive business. Numerous companies have jockeyed for market share over the years, both before and after the likes of Apple and Samsung took over as the two most dominant companies. And while the iPhone and Galaxy brands are generally considered the premiere mobile devices of today, there have been plenty of challengers for that throne — both before and after Apple and Samsung combined to grab almost all of the smartphone business.
It turns out that succeeding in the cell phone game is harder than it looks. It takes a combination of a great product, excellent marketing, and a bit of luck to have a best-selling phone. The companies who manufactured these 13 phones quickly learned it the hard way, and in some cases, have barely bothered to try again since.
13. BlackBerry Storm
Poor BlackBerry, they soared so high and then fell so hard. They were legitimately one of the first companies to take over the smartphone market, although they looked a lot different back then. There were no touchscreens or amazing cameras, just physical keyboards and clickwheels. But hey, the BlackBerries could access email and get online, so that was a step forward.
As the rise of touchscreen smartphones was in full swing, BlackBerry felt they needed to be in that market too. Thus, they developed the BlackBerry Storm. It was dubbed the “iPhone killer,” which actually makes us laugh out loud in hindsight. The Storm featured a touchscreen keyboard, but the whole screen would “click” down while typing. It was awful. Plus, the software (which wasn’t originally designed to work with a touchscreen) was hastily slapped together and had numerous bugs and glitches. An aggressive (an expensive) marketing campaign had a lot of people convinced, but almost everyone who bought a the Storm ended up returning it. Once the reviews got out, sales died off completely. BlackBerry attempted to redeem themselves with the Storm 2, but it was also a dud.
http://mobilesyrup.com/2014/09/24/blackberrys-input-innovation-a-retrospective/ Via mobilesyrup.com