Under Balsillie‘s leadership, RIM began expanding internationally. By the mid 1990s, the company had a staff of over 30 developing electronics hardware and radio frequency wireless communications technology.
The BlackBerry Name Emerges
In 1996, RIM introduced an early predecessor to the BlackBerry called the RIM 900 Inter@ctive Pager. The 900 stood out with its QWERTY keyboard for efficient two-way messaging between customers and dispatchers.
As the story goes, when employees saw the keyboard layout, it reminded them of the seeds of blackberries. Hence the BlackBerry name was coined.