January 19, 1999, a two-way pager company in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, by the name of Research In Motion released its latest model. Launched in Munich, Germany, it featured a monochrome screen, the device could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server using its complementary server software and used the DataTAC network.
The new device even sported a new name, "BlackBerry". The name was coined by the marketing company Lexicon Branding and was chosen due to the resemblance of the keyboard's buttons to that of the drupelets that compose the blackberry fruit.
The rest as they say, is history.
Happy Sweet 16th Birthday to the device that started it all.
http://www.blackberryos.com/content/happy-birthday-blackberry-7763/