Mike Lazaridis is an entrepreneur, business executive and philanthropist, he was born on March 14, 1961 in Istanbul, Turkey. Mihal Lazaridis is an entrepreneur, business executive and philanthropist. Lazaridis studied electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo, where in 1984 he founded Research In Motion or RIM, the wireless technology company that revolutionized the communications industry with the development of the BlackBerry. Childhood Mike Lazaridis is came to Canada with his parents at the age of 5 and grew up in Windsor, Ontario. Lazaridis loved science since childhood and was always fascinated by how things worked. At the age of 12, he won a prize for reading all the science books in the Windsor library. In high school, Lazaridis took science classes to prepare for college but also enrolled in shop classes that allowed him to tinker.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Research in Motion In 1979, Mike enrolled at the University of Waterloo with his friend Doug Fregin, Mike founded Research in Motion (RIM), which was established as an electronics and computer consulting firm that would later focus on developing technologies for wireless transmission of data, such as e-mail and text messages , and on the creation of wireless point-of-sale customer terminals. They were soon joined by their comrade Michael Barnstijn. In 1986, while the young men were still students, RIM obtained a $600,000 contract from General Motors. In 1992, Mike Lazaridis was joined by Jim Balsillie as co-CEO. The combination of Lazaridis' technical vision and Balsillie's business acumen helped RIM grow from a small company with about 10 employees in 1992 to an international corporation worth more than $68 billion by the end of 2007. This This success was largely due to the development of BlackBerry, launched in 1999. However, by 2007 the industry was moving forward, led by Apple and the iPhone it introduced that year. RIM continued to grow, reaching nearly $20 billion in sales in fiscal 2011, but only reluctantly incorporated new trends, such as a camera or MP3 player, into its smartphone. By the end of 2011, iPhones and Android phones had become more popular than Blackberries in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and almost 60% of RIM's sales came from other countries. RIM's growth began to slow and new consumers in emerging markets purchased lower-end devices. RIM's market evolution was complicated by a major service interruption in October 2011, the fifth in five years. Despite announcing a new line of "superphones" coming in 2012, RIM suffered a drop in its stock price of almost 55%. Shareholders have demanded changes, particularly at the company management level. After a few months of pressure, the management shakeup was publicly announced on January 22, 2012. Balsillie and Lazaridis were replaced as co-CEOs by COO Thorsten Heins and their joint role as chairman of the board of The administration was assumed by Barbara Stymiest. Lazaridis assumed the new title of vice chairman of the board and chair of the board's new innovation committee, while Balsillie remained a member of the board until his resignation on March 29, 2012 .Keep in mind: This is just a sample.Get a custom paper from our expert writers now.Get a custom essay One...