Here was a device designed for efficiency and getting things done . Yet, it was launched in a city famous for two things: Gemütlichkeit (the deliberate state of relaxation) and Oktoberfest .
Munich gave the world lederhosen, pretzels, and the BMW. But it also gave us the BlackBerry. And for that, your aching thumbs should probably send a silent thank you to Bavaria. blackberry 850 introduction location munich germany
To understand why Munich was chosen, you have to understand Europe’s head start. In the late 1990s, Europe was light-years ahead of North America in wireless technology. GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) was the standard, while the US was still a patchwork of clunky CDMA and iDEN networks. Here was a device designed for efficiency and
And yet, Munich embraced it. The city’s industrial engineering mindset saw the 850 not as a leash, but as a tool. It was a little German-engineered piece of radio technology (designed in Canada, but optimized for the Munich-based Infineon chips inside). The BlackBerry 850 was discontinued within two years, replaced by the iconic 957 and later the 6210 (the first with a phone). But the 850 is the fossil that proves the origin story. But it also gave us the BlackBerry