It was sad news when we heard that Mike Kirkup would be leaving RIM and leaving his post of Sr. Director of Developer Relations at RIM. Now Kevin @CrackBerry is hearing that Neil Sainsbury (@eZainny) might be stepping in to take Mikes place as a possible candidate for the Director of Developer Relations at RIM.
It’s a sad day for NHC Blackberry Alliance. To say I was shocked when I saw word that one of our absolute all-time favorite Research In Motion employees, Mike Kirkup, tendered his resignation today would be an understatement.
While at the NYC BBM Hackathon I had a chance to sit down and talk with Mike Kirkup, RIM’s Senior Director of Global Developer Relations, to discuss many topics of interest to both new and long time BlackBerry developers. We have interviewed Mike many times in the past and it is always interesting especially with all that has been going on in 2011. The Hackathon was an awesome event and it was great to see developers collaborating with RIM and each other to create new BlackBerry apps that push the platform forward.
The topics Mike and I discussed are ones that developers have been asking me recently especially considering the strong push RIM has been making to encourage BlackBerry app development both on smartphones and the PlayBook. Let me know if I missed any question you wanted answered and I will follow up with Mike.
Continue reading Interview With RIM’s Mike Kirkup: A Must Read for BlackBerry Developers
RIM let us know that the official roll-out of BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 Sorry we jumped the gun a few hours ago but now you understand why. You can start checking App World now for the update but due to their 24 hour cache period that may take a bit. As you have already seen RIM has started approving apps in App World that make use of the Social Platform available in BBM 6 so they are available when BBM6 launches now.
In an interview with Mike Kirkup, Director of Developer Relations @ RIM, he told us that BBM now has 45 million users and is seeing tremendous growth. They process over a billion BBM messages a day and the number is only growing. This ability to use BBM inside 3rd party apps is going to be explosive but more on that soon. RIM’s goal is to let developer harness BBM’s instant feature. Mike told me his colleague described it as both Instant AND Intimate. In other words sub 3 second messages along with a intimate private chat setting. Now developers are going to be able to tap into that powerful BBM social graph.
You should be able to find BBM 6 in App World sometime today or directly at:
www.blackberry.com/blackberrymessenger[qrcode pix=150]http://nhcbba.com/downloads/Blackberry_Messenger[/qrcode]
Check out the press release below:
Continue reading RIM Releases BlackBerry Messenger 6 Officially!
RIM’s vision of BlackBerry ID is slowly taking shape with more and more services coming under its umbrella. More and more RIM services are starting to use BlackBerry ID and it will be an integral part of BlackBerry OS 7 just like it is on the PlayBook. Right now when a developer wants to identify an app user they can either use the users PIN number or maybe query one of the email addresses associated with the device. RIM plans for BlackBerry ID to replace that as single point of identification for a BlackBerry user.
I spoke to Mike Kirkup, Director of Developer Relations @RIM, about this upcoming API that is either shipping with BlackBerry OS 7 or coming as a service after launch like the Advertising or BBM service. Developers can potentially use that BlackBerry ID data as a form of identification to uniquely identify a user. For example, developers can use that ID to verify app licenses against their own registration list and other customizations based on a single identity. I am hoping that means the end of registration codes and painful PIN transitions.
On top of that RIM has a long term vision beyond the original use case for BlackBerry ID. They envision leveraging it in the future for 3rd party devs to store information about the user like app registrations or even app settings in the cloud. I can see quite a bit that devs could benefit from especially for making the transition between devices simpler. It could store a quick backup object for each app with basic settings to make device switches a piece of cake sort of like what BlackBerry Protect did.
What do you think about the BlackBerry ID API?
Oddly enough I found that Adobe Developer Evangelist, Renaun Erickson, posted a whole tutorial about working with the BlackBerry ID API on the BlackBerry PlayBook. The weird part is that I can find no reference to the different API’s Renaun talks about though I can now confirm that they are coming. Renaun pulls in this ID information from the following classes:
Except for Renaun mentioning them I cannot find any other reference to them. Let me know if you figure out more!
via:bbr
The rumor has been going around for some time now that BBM will be heading to other platforms. We decided to revisit the topic as it was something discussed a lot at BlackBerry World and we’re still getting companies asking us about it. The problem with the rumor, is that RIM and the carriers know the real value in BBM is not as a successful messaging platform per se, but rather its value as a customer retention tool. We’ve heard carriers consistently say that BBM is the number 1 customer retention tool for BlackBerry devices, as users will purchase another BlackBerry simply to not lose those BBM contacts. So given that understanding, why would RIM want to open it up to other platforms and give those users an out? They wouldn’t; but here are a few ways they may implement.
Stripped Down Version
BlackBerry Messenger on another smartphone has to become a customer acquisition tool. RIM would only open BBM to iPhone or Android, if they thought it would help them acquire these users as customers. A stripped down version of BBM would be interesting – and an extreme case would allow iPhone and Android users to read a conversation, but not reply. That’s probably a little too extreme, and would more likely include messages such as “John is trying to send you a picture via BBM but your device is not compatible.” The more an iPhone user gets these messages the more they’ll become frustrated with their own device. This sort of frustration is a great way to drive customers. Just look at the amount of BlackBerry users that get frustrated when the latest and greatest app isn’t available for their device at launch.
BBM in Enterprise
At BlackBerry World, RIM announced a new multi-platform management solution for enterprise. The solution will incorporate secure device management for iOS, Android, and tablets all managed from convenient web-based console. RIM knows that enterprise, while predominantly BlackBerry, has a smattering of other devices on the network that can’t be ignored by IT Admins. It would be interesting to see a version of BBM that is multi-platform but only available for enterprise. This cross-platform BBM solution would allow companies that use BBM to better communicate within the organization regardless of platform.
BBM as a Paid Subscription Service
It’s not impossible that RIM could offer BBM as a paid service. Once subscribed, you could get access to the full BBM experience with a native-feeling app. The fact that it costs money doesn’t make much sense from a user perspective, but it makes a lot of sense from a high level. First, you put up a barrier for those customers looking to move from BlackBerry to Android. If they want to bring their BBM contacts with them, they have to pay RIM which gives the company a little extra money in an otherwise lost revenue opportunity. Second, if an iPhone user wants to have full access to BBM, they’ll have to pay a subscription. A year or so later when they go to upgrade their device, they may think “if I go BlackBerry, I’m saving the cost of my BBM subscription, and I was on the fence about buying one anyways.”
As RIM has pointed out before, in order to move BBM to other platforms there is an incredible amount of work that has to be done. Even in talking about moving BBM to the PC, it seemed like it wasn’t really in the cards. In the video below, skip to 4:30 to hear Mike Kirkup discuss BBM with respect to other platforms, courtesy of BerryReview and bbcool.
On a BlackBerry? Click here for mobile video view
Last week at BlackBerry World, Mike Kirkup demoed the social networking app Foursquare integrating the BBM Social Platform. With the new version of Foursquare you’ll be able to share your badges, update your video after the break!
Continue reading Foursquare and BBM Video Demo at Blackberry World
The BlackBerry WebWorks platform that RIM rebranded and announced a bit back is really starting to coming into its own. Even before BlackBerry World I have see the platform grow and the BlackBerry PlayBook only helped it along. I have even been dabbling myself with a few apps that I created in the WebWorks SDK. The PlayBook browser really lets these apps shine with its faster processing speed but BlackBerry 7 should offer a similar experience. For BlackBerry 7 RIM has rewritten the browser using the new hardware enhanced graphics to run the HTML, image, and JavaScript processing in separate threads along with JIT (Just in Time) JavaScript processing.
If you really want to be impressed with a “WebWorks” style app look no further than the BlackBerry Bridge. Chris Smith from RIM confirmed for me that the BlackBerry Bridge on the BlackBerry PlayBook is rendered with the WebKit browser though obviously with access to more API’s. Other apps like Slacker for BlackBerry and the very popular Rogers Hockeycentral app are also both written using WebWorks on the PlayBook. Chris also confirmed that the BBM Social Platform API’s for WebWorks are coming in the next few weeks.
Continue reading BlackBerry WebWorks Platform Gaining Serious Traction
During a Q&A session with Mike Kirkup from Research in Motion (RIM) and a panel that included developers from Foursquare, Polar Mobile,Poynt, Wikitude, and a few others RIM touched on the subject of BBM for other platforms. The session was interesting the guys shared their experience of working with the Webworks SDK. It seems RIM is moving in the right direction attracting good developers while empowering the current ones.
One of the key questions that stood out to me was “When is BBM going cross platform or to the PC? Kirkup was straight forward and said that there was no plan or intentions of doing either. The reason being is that BBM is a key to attracting customers to BlackBerry. Another reason is the fact that the infrastructure that runs BBM is internal and taking it outside of RIM’s would be probably a really bad idea. I am not saying it couldn’t happen but i do not see how doing that would benefit them. There are quite a few apps already do that but not as good as BBM. If RIM really wanted to do that it would make more sense to maybe buy one of the 3rd party developers such as live profile or Whatsapp and simply give it access to API’s that would allow others to use that app to send messages to BBM users and vise versa. But I believe BBM needs to stay in-house.
We recorded most of the Q&A session so if you are a developer we encourage you to watch the video. You may find some interesting information on it. If you are interested on hearing about the BBM questions skip to 4 minutes on the video, the video is quite long.
via:bbr
Yes you read that right! Mike Kirkup, Director of Developer Relations at RIM, and Chris Smith, Senior Director for the BlackBerry Development Platform, confirmed at BlackBerry World this week that the BlackBerry PlayBook Bluetooth Bridge will be opened up to 3rd party developers. This will allow developers to pass information back and forth between BlackBerry Smartphones and the PlayBook. RIM will be opening up API’s to allow things like making a phone call or sending a link to the browser.
Mike and Chris took it a step further saying that they plan on even giving developers access to the Bluetooth stack to be able to create their own “bridge” interface for anything they can dream up. That means that apps like Tether might have a future on the BlackBerry PlayBook. It also means RIM plans on a tighter integration between the two devices even in third party apps without the limitations imposed in the current smartphone OS.
They didn’t mention a time frame but did mention that they will have a ton of surprises in store for DevCon this year!
via:bbr
Night Hawk Computers Blackberry Alliance 