Publicly, Mr. Lazaridis and Mr. Balsillie belittled the iPhone and its shortcomings, including its short battery life, weaker security and initial lack of e-mail. That earned them a reputation for being cocky and, eventually, out of touch. “That’s marketing,” Mr. Lazaridis explained. “You position your strengths against their weaknesses.”

A couple of weeks ago The Globe and Mail published an article by a team of reporters that provided insight into what happened at RIM Blackberry since the iPhone launched. Well worth the read, the article is full of retrospective quotes and anecdotes about Blackberry’s reaction to competitors’ products and their approach to leadership and decision making.

To me, the article paints a clear picture of Lazaridis confusing his product, tiny keyboards, with his business, communications. Over and over, from shelving the SMS 2.0 project to renaming the company, Blackberry failed at recognizing value beyond its hardware products. Now those hardware devices have negative value and are bringing down the whole company. This is effectively where Apple would be if you imagine that they had stopped at the iPod.