The BlackBerry smartphone was created by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM), which was co‑founded by Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin in 1984; Lazaridis is widely credited as the key inventor behind the BlackBerry device line. Jim Balsillie later joined as co‑CEO and played a major role in turning BlackBerry into a global business phenomenon, but he arrived after the company was already founded.