Shares in the Canadian maker of BlackBerry smartphones peaked in August of 2007, at two hundred and thirty-six dollars. Seven months earlier, in January, Apple had introduced the iPhone at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Executives at BlackBerry decided to let Apple focus on the general-use smartphone market, while it would continue selling BlackBerry products to business and government customers that bought the devices for employees.

Six years later, BlackBerry’s stock is worth just over ten dollars a share, and in 2013 announced that it has formed a “special committee” to explore ways to sell the company or form a joint venture with another business, among other options. Basically it was trying to salvage the company.

This case analyzes what went wrong with this seemingly can’t-miss product and if there is anything that could have been done to prevent its demise.