Although Thursday’s earnings calls definitely left many BlackBerry enthusiasts with a sour taste in their mouth, we did learn a few things about why the new BlackBerry devices are being delayed.
From the earnings calls:
Continue reading RIM's New Devices Delayed Due To New Chipset
Much like their home countries, Apple and RIM share much in common, but contrast in important ways. Both companies are among the few that produce their own software for their cellular handsets. Apple, a personal computing pioneer, sees market expansion in smartphones. RIM, a smartphone pioneer, sees market expansion in mobile computing. Looking at the tablets on offer, Apple has been just as adamant in decrying a 7-inch display as RIM has been defending it, the latter saying that it sought to create an ultramobile device with the PlayBook.
Apple designs products for consumers that have relevance for enterprises. RIM designs products for enterprises that have relevance for consumers. This has also been evident with the PlayBook, which has taken heat for its lack of native e-mail and calendaring options. RIM consciously put these on the back burner because it wanted to appease CIOs concerned about data theft, even though it meant a less appealing launch product for consumers. Another parallel: RIM has suffered as AT&T delays in supporting Bridge, just as Apple struggled with AT&T supporting tethering on the iPhone.
Indeed, when Steve Ballmer took the stage at BlackBerry World in Orlando, it brought back memories of a scene that leads off the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, when Bill Gates appeared on screen at Macworld Expo in 1997 to announce a deal that would make Internet Explorer the default browser for the Mac. Fourteen years later, Google has replaced Netscape as Microsoft’s archrival and the BlackBerry has become a prize for Bing.
If Apple was able to pull itself back from a “near-death experience,” can RIM regain its lost luster too? |
Despite some missteps and significant market share losses, RIM is nowhere near the state of financial crisis that Apple was in back then. However, in both cases, the appearance of a Microsoft CEO has been a sign of confidence in a platform against which Microsoft competes. So, if Apple was able to pull itself back from what Steve Jobs has called its “near-death experience,” can RIM regain its lost luster too? Has it hit a bump in the road amidst a transition or is it in freefall as Nokia was prior to its recent overhaul?
Apple has one demonstrated advantage compared to its northern neighbor, and that has been an acute sense of timing. Like the big cats for which its Mac operating systems are named, Apple has shown a strong pattern of pouncing on the industry at just the right time. When the right components become affordable enough, Apple envelops them in a luscious layer of user experience to drive mass adoption. RIM, meanwhile, has seen growth stall since miscalculating the challenge of iPhone and its mercenary competitor Android.
Nonetheless, a key reason for optimism is the one-two punch of RIM acquisitions QNX, which handles the nimble, low-level plumbing of the BlackBerry Tablet OS, and TAT, which is infusing the historically efficient but stodgy RIM user interface with a sense of imagination, whimsy, and exploration. We have seen the beginnings of RIM assembling these pieces in programs such as the PlayBook’s scrapbooking app, and also in sprucing up the workaday calculator with flourishes such as watching the calculation history get torn off like paper from a vintage adding machine. Here, RIM — like Apple — controls its own destiny. Unlike Nokia’s position with Windows Phone 7, it need not, for example, keep reigns on a user interface direction to avoid disturbing consistency with competitors.
The challenge, as was acknowledged several times at BlackBerry World, is time. The core components are there. Now RIM is racing competitors to synthesize its acquisitions. It must create a competitive experience with headroom to grow across a suite of its own core apps, those of its developers, and, most importantly, expand from a dual-core tablet platform into a revitalized line of BlackBerry handsets. The sand in the hourglass is the goodwill of corporate and carrier customers that RIM says still have strong demand for its products and trust in its approach.
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) is executive director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
via:Engagdet
One of the big surprises this year at BlackBerry World 2011 took place during Tuesday’s keynote presentation, when Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer took to the stage. In the video above you can watch Ballmer’s full presentation where he talks about Microsoft working with RIM to enhance the cloud-based services available to BlackBerry, with a primary focus on Bing.
If you want to skip the talking and get to the goods, you can jump to 7m35s for a video depicting where Microsoft and RIM want to go with Bing on BlackBerry, and to 10m35s for a live demo of some of the new Bing on BlackBerry features that they already have working (including location awareness and search right from the locked homescreen – swipe to search).
All in all, I really like where RIM is going here. The more we can get our BlackBerry devices doing the better. My only hope is that while Microsoft + RIM are going to work closely to bring more cloud-based experiences to BlackBerry handsets, that users who may not be Bing fans can turn off these core OS integrated services if they choose too. I like having the option of using all of these Microsoft services, but I don’t want to be forced to.
Be sure to watch the video above and be sure to sound off in the comments with your thoughts. Do you like the direction things are going here??
via:cb
One of our BlackBerry sources just shot us over some information on the latest version of Desktop Manager, version 6.1. Besides bringing compatibility to upcoming BlackBerry handsets that will run OS 6.1, Desktop Manager 6.1 is also said to bring little enhancements and changes to the desktop application. One noticeable addition we caught? The ability to forget a previously backed up / synced device. See? Still using a BlackBerry has its perks from time to time. One more shot of the new Desktop Manager after the break.
Continue reading BlackBerry Desktop Manager 6.1 coming soon?
It’s now reported that RIM’s BlackBerry is the most successful smartphone platform of 2010 in the UK, according to data by GfK. This really comes to no surprise as the iPhone is known to be a high priced phone in the UK, while the BlackBerry offers more options and different prices to suit the consumers budget.
Popular apps are also helping things out too: there are 33 million users of BB Messenger worldwide, which is a 500% increase year on year – and RIM is claiming it’s number one for Facebook engagement and Twitter downloads too.
I am totally confused here. On one hand RIM has issued a statement to multiple news sources that “RIM assures customers that it will not compromise the integrity and 
security of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution.” On the other hand we have the India Times reporting that “Research in Motion (RIM) has for the first time agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its BlackBerry services.”
So which one is it? According to the India Times:
The company (RIM) has offered to share with security agencies its technical codes for corporate email services, open up access to all consumer emails within 15 days and also develop tools in 6 to 8 months to allow monitoring of chats… With regard to its general consumer email, RIM has said the services provided by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Loop and Tata can already be monitored. RIM also assured that it is working with mobile phone companies like Aircel, BSNL, MTNL, Idea and Reliance Communications to install the requisite infrastructure to ensure that general consumer emails offered by these firms are in formats that can monitored by security agencies within the next 15 days, documents with the telecom ministry said. Voice and SMS services on BlackBerry handsets can be intercepted by security agencies here, the DoT’s internal note adds.
Now on the other hand RIM has issued the following statement that we saw on IntoMobile:
Due to recent media reports, Research In Motion (RIM) recognizes that some customers are curious about the discussions that occur between RIM and certain governments regarding the use of encryption in BlackBerry products. RIM also understands that the confidential nature of these discussions has consequently given rise to speculation and misinterpretation. RIM respects both the regulatory requirements of government and the security and privacy needs of corporations and consumers. While RIM does not disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it is committed to continue delivering highly secure and innovative products that satisfy the needs of both customers and governments.
Many public facts about the BlackBerry Enterprise Server security architecture have been well established over the years and remain unchanged. A recap of these facts, along with other general industry facts, should help our customers maintain confidence about the security of their information.
- RIM operates in over 175 countries today and provides a security architecture that is widely accepted by security conscious customers and governments around the world.
- Governments have a wide range of resources and methodologies to satisfy national security and law enforcement needs without compromising commercial security requirements.
- The use of strong encryption in wireless technology is not unique to the BlackBerry platform. Strong encryption is a mandatory requirement for all enterprise-class wireless email services.
- The use of strong encryption in information technology is not limited to the wireless industry. Strong encryption is used pervasively on the Internet to protect the confidentiality of personal and corporate information.
- Strong encryption is a fundamental requirement for a wide variety of technology products that enable businesses to operate and compete, both domestically and internationally.
- The BlackBerry security architecture was specifically designed to provide corporate customers with the ability to transmit information wirelessly while also providing them with the necessary confidence that no one, including RIM, could access their data.
- The BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers is based on a symmetric key system whereby the customer creates their own key and only the customer ever possesses a copy of their encryption key. RIM does not possess a “master key”, nor does any “back door” exist in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain unauthorized access to the key or corporate data.
- The BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for RIM or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances. RIM would simply be unable to accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator, ever possess a copy of the key.
- The BlackBerry security architecture was also purposefully designed to perform as a global system independent of geography. The location of data centers and the customer’s choice of wireless network are irrelevant factors from a security perspective since end-to-end encryption is utilized and transmissions are no more decipherable or less secure based on the selection of a wireless network or the location of a data center. All data remains encrypted through all points of transfer between the customer’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the customer’s device (at no point in the transfer is data decrypted and re-encrypted).
RIM assures customers that it will not compromise the integrity and security of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution.
So now I am still confused. Which one is it? Do they allow government monitoring or not? Maybe BES server email is excluded? What do you make of it? Maybe these governments will tackle how frustrating it is to open an envelope without the receiver noticing it was tampered with…
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Throughout the last few months, speculation has been circulating the internet regarding an upcoming BlackBerry tablet. While this doesn’t confirm the existence or development of the “BlackPad”, it’s always fun to take a look at rumors and consider what new gadgets might come out to further occupy our already busy lives.
The reason this doesn’t provide any certainty that this device will, in fact, be created, is that RIM already own over 4000 registered domain names, snapping up anything even remotely related to their products, code names, etc. With all of the rumors circulating, it isn’t out of the question that RIM purchased the domain just to keep it from others.
Skepticism aside, what do you think about a potential tablet device from RIM? BlackBerry 6 is definitely a step in the right direction, but is it enough to justify the need for a full sized tablet? Other rumors circulating point to the device being a companion device to BlackBerry handsets, but that leaves some wondering what else a tablet could offer besides a larger display.
Check out the WHOIS entry: http://whois.domaintools.com/blackpad.com
[via Nerdberry]
BlackBerry handsets are known to help increase productivity, and make life easier for all types of users. Whether you use your BlackBerry for business, personal, or both aspects of your life, odds are you can make use of this free application. XE Currency converter makes it simple to get live rates and convert any amount from one currency to another while you’re on the go.
We’ve all been out for longer than expected and had our batteries die, and it’s an admittedly unpleasant experience for most BlackBerry addicts. There are several ways to save your battery charge and reduce needless drain built in to our handsets, some obvious, some maybe not quite as much. Here are 6 tips to help you save your battery power if you find yourself running low.
Fox Mobile announced on Thursday that it is launching a streaming video service that will rival Hulu. The service will feature full-length, on demand television programming from CBS, Fox NBC, A&E, Comedy Central, Discovery, FX, MTV, and USA. Though not available at launch, full-length movies will be added by the end of the year. Targeting the mobile phone market, the service will be compatible with BlackBerry handsets including all the variants of the BlackBerry Bold series, as well as the Curve 8900 and Tour 9630. Though the BitBop app itself is free, the streaming service requires a $9.99 monthly fee that provides unlimited streaming and limited downloads. Interested BlackBerry owners can download the BitBop application from the BITBOP and get their streaming on now
Night Hawk Computers Blackberry Alliance 