RIM Shareholders Call For Change

Its not to anyone’s surprise that RIM’s stock this year has been less than stellar. Rumors of the company selling its self to another tech giant have been circulating for quite some time now. In addition, key personnel have left the company to pursue other endeavors. The results of all this are that shareholders are becoming more restless as they continue to see their shares fall.

Now shareholders are beginning to become more vocal about their investments with BlackBerry maker RIM. In a letter to the board, Vic Albioni head of Jaguar Financial, an investor in RIM, expressed his frustrations with the company, and added some pretty bold suggestions.

5 Ways RIM Can Improve the App Ecosystem

It really seems like apps sell devices these days. Whether or not it’s true from the retail side of things, it’s definitely true from a media perspective. Much of RIM’s chagrin is due to the perception that developers aren’t interested in the platform because a lot of the latest apps are choosing iPhone first in terms of what to develop for. RIM needs some bold moves to help make it big in the app economy and here are 5 things we’d like to see.

First Look At The US Military’s Smartphone and Desktop App Store

The US Military is making a bold and impressive move by creating a smartphone and desktop app store for soldiers. The app store will be called the Army Marketplace and it will feature applications for both smartphones and desktop computers to help soldiers and new recruits. The app marketplace will also feature an agile software development process, where requests are put in for apps and developers can respond to the request and choose to build.

The main problem the app store is facing right now is device authentication. BlackBerry is the only smartphone certified to handle government data, and it can really only carry mail. The IT policies generally shut out all applications, and according to Lt. Col. Gregory Motes, chief of the Army’s new Mobile Applications Branch, “we don’t have a solution for authenticating applications or secure websites.” If a smartphone were to win authentication for apps, it would surely be a BlackBerry with policies that allow certain types of applications and block features that could reveal secure data.

It would have been great to see more BlackBerry apps entered in the contest, and it seems only 1 made the “Honorable Mention”. The app that did receive the honorable mention is called BB Slant and it’s really straight forward and actually pretty cool. The app lets a soldier create, respond to, or review sent reports containing a list of tasks for the user to complete via email on a BlackBerry. This is an excellent example of how the military can leverage encrypted BlackBerry email and make the job easier and more efficient. Slant Reports seem like a tedious routine operation and leveraging the fast, efficient nature of email and the BlackBerry keyboard could go a long way to improving this system.

Click here to read a complete list of the 25 winners and Honorable Mentions.

Read more about the app store at Wired.

Adding fuel to the fire: "We'll also support Android apps" heard during PlayBook demo at MWC

[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ]

These days we’ve been hearing plenty of rumors about Research In Motions BlackBerry PlayBook having the ability to run Google’s Android application. Whether or not it turns out to be true remains to been seen but the evidence is mounting at a rapid pace. While Mobile World Congress brought us some information surrounding the BlackBerry PlayBook and we did get to see some cool demos overall, not much more then what was already known was revealed in Barcelona — or was it?

The above is of course a YouTube video that was sent into us. At first glance it just appears to be a normal walkthrough of the BlackBerry PlayBook. Nothing different from each and every other demo that was given during Mobile World Congress. However, the details are in the audio for this one. While the background noise is heavy if you pay attention around the 0:14 second mark the person giving the demo clearly states, “We’ll also support Android apps”. That’s a pretty bold statement to be making during Mobile World Congress without some sort of information being known to back it up. Is it confirmation? No, not exactly. But why would that even slip out if there was no basis for it?

Source: Twitter

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Talks About RIM Acquisition

Pretty much as long as BlackBerryCool has been around, we’ve been hearing about the possibility of Microsoft acquiring RIM. In a recent interview, Steve Ballmer addressed the potential for an acquisition, saying the decision to build versus buy is a complicated subject. Would RIM even consider a buyout? With all their latest acquisitions and foray into tablets and new markets, RIM is surely in it for the long haul and focused on building a company that would could be too big to acquire. From the interview:

Q: What has stopped you from making really bold bets on technology? You’ve got more than $40 billion on the balance sheet. If you want to have substantial market share in smartphones, why not just acquire Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry?

A: We’ve made bold technology bets. We’ve bet on the Cloud and our Enterprise business; it’s going fantastic. We made the bet on Xbox; we made the bet on Kinect. We bet on Bing and are growing like a weed in that business. So I feel pretty good about the bets. When do acquisitions make sense? That’s a complicated subject.

Read the full interview at this link.

BlackBerry Dakota (Montana?) Specs Apparently leak out

Here is an interesting news piece for the day. Remember the BlackBerry Montana we’ve just been talking about, that is a bold/touchscreen hybrid? Well, apparently some specs have come out that line-up very closely with yesterday’s announcements of OS 6.1 application platform. This device used to be called the Dakota, but we’re certain it is going by ‘Montana’. Nevertheless, check out the rumored specs:

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band UMTS
• 5 megapixel camera with HD video recording, flash, and image stabilization
• 4GB of built in storage, 768MB of RAM
• 2.8-inch VGA 640×480 capacitive screen
• WiFi b,g,n on 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies
• 3G mobile hotspot!
• MicroUSB port
• Bluetooth
• NFC
• Magnetometer
• Accelerometer
• Proximity sensor
• 10.5mm thin
• Launches with BlackBerry OS 6.1

via BGR

BlackBerry Monaco headed to production; BlackBerry Montana to be an 8900 or 9000 series?

One of our sources has told us that the BlackBerry Monaco, which could be the ‘Storm3′, has headed to production. We’ve also been told that RIM has almost certainly dropped the SurePress touchscreen technology from the Storm series (if this series even continues to exist). This leads us to believe that the Monaco may soon hit CDMA carriers, namely Verizon Wireless, as the replacement for a Storm3.

The Monaco is supposed to sport a 3.7-in touchscreen, trackpad, 512MB RAM, OS 6, and possibly a 1GHz processor.  We’re eager to find more information come to light on the Monaco, as we’ve also heard whispers RIM is testing out a new horizontal keypad. Perhaps the Monaco may be a slider?

Something else interesting we’re being told is the BlackBerry Montana (bold/ touchscreen hybrid) may be either an 8900 or 9000 series device. The Montana is said to rock a Bold 9000 shell with potentially a Curve 8900 keypad. Therefore, it has been undecided on which model series to choose as a model number. Although, it has been rumored to be model 9900 for some time.

Times are interesting for RIM as they continue to develop QNX, and have plans for dual-core ‘super phones’. We don’t know if we’ll see any QNX-enabled BlackBerry smartphones in 2011, but there should be at least 4 new devices with OS 6. Out of the Monaco and Montana, which one would you get?

Cheryl Cole Upgrades to the Bold 9780

QNX BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet OS and TRON…

I headed over to QNX’s website today to see what they had to say about the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet OS. After running into a few errors on their site I spotted their announcement to:

Meet the Power Behind the BlackBerry Tablet OS

What I love the most about QNX is that they are bold and cocky and it looks like they will be able to follow through on their claims. They are bringing their experience with millions of mission critical systems for which the QNX Neutrino RTOS (Real Time OS) is known for. You can read the rest of their comments on the BlackBerry Tablet OS below but what I found the most interesting was that both RIM and QNX seem to be showing off the BlackBerry PlayBook with TRON on screen. Could it be that RIM will be doing a promotional piece with TRON for the PlayBook launch?

Here is the official wording QNX has put on their site summarizing what they are bringing to the BlackBerry Tablet OS.

The QNX Neutrino RTOS is known the world over for the ultimate in performance and reliability. Proven in everything from the space station and the world’s highest capacity router to millions of in-car systems, it brings capabilities to the mobile market that are absolutely unique.

Space-grade reliability

From day one, the QNX Neutrino RTOS was designed for bullet-proof operation. Its microkernel architecture protects every application, driver, file system, and protocol stack in the safety of memory-protected user space. As a result, multiple third-party applications can run simultaneously on the RTOS without corrupting one another or the RTOS itself. Better yet, applications and services can be updated dynamically for nonstop service.

True multi-tasking for multi-core

QNX Neutrino is a multi-threaded RTOS optimized for the latest multi-core processors. Its field-proven implementation of symmetric multi-processing (SMP) allows multiple applications to run in parallel while extracting the maximum performance from every processing core.

Standards-based for portability

QNX Software Systems is a champion of industry standards, including Flash, POSIX and OpenGL ES. In fact, the QNX Neutrino RTOS is POSIX-certified, not just POSIX-like, allowing application developers to leverage an immense pool of open source applications and code.

Via: BR

More BlackBerry Bold 9780 Pics with Short Video

When it comes to the Torch I am sort of reluctant to make the swap from my Bold 9700. Not because of the touch, I can adapt. Fact is i’m not a fan of the slider phone. Even after i’ve read countless reviews from actual Torch owners, who say it just as good, if not a little better than the the Bold 9700 QWERTY keyboard. Still, i’m not drawn to it. I was pleased when it was discovered that OS6 was running on a 9700. I said to myself, well looks like I will not be upgrading devices soon, until I saw a tweet from @DonLuiG from the informative BR team. Luis got some great photos as well as a short video of the new unreleased BlackBerry Bold 9780 running BB6. Looks like GSM carriers will be selling this new smartphone. I hope I see it on T-Mobile, soon. I wouldn’t mind upgrading to the 9780. What do you’all think?

Click here to view in Mobile

Source : Blackberry Empire

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