[Source]

“We are starting fiscal 2010 with strong financial performance and impressive market share gains, including a 55% share of the U.S. smartphone market according to IDC’s latest estimate,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM. “The industry leading BlackBerry product portfolio is driving strong customer demand around the world and our penetration of new market segments continues to expand. We are particularly excited about the strength of our product portfolio for fiscal 2010 and we are looking forward to driving continued growth and profitability in our business throughout the remainder of the year.”

That may all well and good, however, the market is mostly reacting to RIM’s drop in subscriber growth and concerns that the BlackBerry is seeing increased pressure in the space from competitors such as the iPhone, Google Android devices, and the Palm Pre.  RIM’s stock price has fallen  0.67 down to $76.04 in after hours trading.

It will be really interesting to see if RIM makes a comeback this quarter while having to compete with the new iPhone 3G S, a $99 iPhone 3G, and a Palm Pre that is getting rave reviews.  RIM has released or is about to release more BlackBerry devices on more carriers at the same time than at any point in its history and I am guessing that it will be a pretty interesting summer in the smartphone market…

It probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise that the BlackBerry, according to report by Maribel Lopez , formerly of Forrester Research, tops the list when it comes to mobile security in smartphones.

The report, Successful Mobile Deployments Require Robust Security, rated mobile devices in 4 different categories on a 4-point scale.  The BlackBerry received a 4 out of 4 rating in each category.

You can check the full report out here…

[Via CrackBerry]

Based on U.S. consumer sales of  smartphone handsets in NPD’s “Smartphone Market Update” report, the first-quarter 2009 ranking of the top-five best- selling smartphones is as follows:

1. RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
2. Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
3. RIM BlackBerry Storm
4. RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
5. T-Mobile G1

What is more impressive than the BlackBerry Curve holding the number 1 spot is that the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Pearl hold the number 3 and 4 spots respectively giving RIM 3 of the top 4 selling smartphones.  No matter how you look at it, RIM is selling a lot more BlackBerrys than is Apple iPhones.  No wonder Apple is looking to bring the iPhone to Verizon.

[Via Silicon Alley Insider]

So, RIM has decided to get into the blogging game and has launched Inside BlackBerry…  The Official BlackBerry Blog.  I wonder if it will have any legs?

The BlackBerry Support Community Forums have just celebrated their first birthday and with hundreds of thousands of posts in their first year, one has to admit that RIM has been pretty successful as far as their forums go.  It will be interesting to see, however, if they can capture lightning in a bottle twice.

Inside BlackBerry has a team of bloggers so they should be able to pump out content pretty regularly.  They aren’t privy to most of the hot topics they know you love to speculate on — RIM’s financials, unreleased products, pricing and carrier information. So unfortunately they won’t be commenting on these areas.

You can check out the official BlackBerry Blog over at blogs.blackberry.com.  Just don’t forget about the good ole <shameless plug>Unofficial BlackBerry Weblog</shameless plug> that has been running since 2004…

Read

Contrary to what we thought was going to happen, Alltel, not Verizon, will be the first carrier to offer the CDMA BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 here in the United States.  The first CDMA clamshell style flip-phone BlackBerry should be hitting the street in early May and will set you back $79.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate.

Read the press release…

BlackBerry OS 5.0.0.90 for the BlackBerry Bold has been leaked.  This is not an officially released OS so make sure that you know what you are doing if you decide to try it out.  We hear that it is a beast to downgrade back after you install it.

If you decide to give BB OS 5.0 for the Bold a go you can download it from the link below.

BlackBerry OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry Bold >>>

Word on the street

No official details on pricing , however, the Pearl Flip should show up on U.S. Wireless in the June time frame.

[Via phoneArena]

Unlike the BlackBerry Storm, the BlackBerry Storm 2 will not be exclusive to Vodafone.  It will be interesting to see if the CDMA version of the BlackBerry Storm 2 comes out on more than just Verizon here in the States.

[Via Engadget Mobile]

BlackBerry Onyx

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi (no UMA support)
• QWERTY keyboard
• 480×360 resolution screen
• Confirmed carriers: AT&T

BlackBerry Driftwood

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi with UMA
• QWERTY keyboard

BlackBerry Magnum

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS device
• GPS
• Camera
• Wi-Fi (no UMA support)
• QWERTY keyboard
• 480×360 resolution screen
• Confirmed carriers: AT&T