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“Mike revolutionized the mobile communications industry and is widely recognized as one of Canada’s greatest innovators,” said Heins during an analyst call on March 28. ”He’s played a pivotal role in the last 15 months with the launch of BlackBerry 10.”

Balsillie did not. A year earlier, the hard-driving workaholic with the dominating presence, who joined RIM in 1992 after investing $250,000 of his own money by remortgaging his house, disappeared quietly. A shareholder revolt in 2011 forced him and Lazaridis out as co-chief executives in January, 2012. Two months later, Balsillie severed his ties completely by resigning from the board of directors in March, 2012, and liquidated all of his substantial 5.1% ownership stake within 12 months of his exit.

Perhaps, the departures underscored how out of synch the pair had become – and likely how each will be remembered. Even as they struggled amid industry criticism of arrogance and poor product launches (namely the PlayBook tablet which was eviscerated in the market), Lazaridis and Balsillie were indulged by a board of directors stubbornly invested in the founders. A deep well of public goodwill allowed the duo to make mistakes that were forgiven as well meaning and well intentioned even though it was clear they couldn’t seem to keep up, let alone stay ahead, of the new smartphone competitors who were hacking off BlackBerry’s once dominant market share.

In the end, the missteps proved costly. As the global giant faltered, the BlackBerry brand was debased so much, it became synonymous with failure. The wireless devices, once so wildly popular and addictive, fell out of favour and were replaced with iPhones and Android devices. Lazaridis and Balsillie insisted the new BB10 operating system would reverse RIM’s fortunes. Investors, analysts and consumers didn’t believe them. Mammoth investor losses, a crippling service outage and an unprecedented slashing of thousands of jobs, transformed the company into an empty vessel of broken promises. BlackBerry, which once commanded 20% of the global market, is now desperately clutching to about 5%.