RIMarkable » BlackBerry News

Indian Government Still Telling Tata Teleservices No

Robb Dunewood — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:51:51 +0000

The Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT)is still telling Tata Teleservices no when it comes to rolling out BlackBerry service in India.

Just the other day Tata said that despite not getting a blessing from the DoT to role out BlackBerry services in India that they were going to do so anyway because the companies currently offering the BlackBerry service never asked for the governments permission. The DoT said however, “Non-compliance of instructions by any other operator in breach of terms and conditions of the licence cannot be a valid ground for according permission to offer Blackberry services.”

To make a long story short, the DoT said that just because they did it an are getting away with it doesn’t mean that you are going to.

We are sure that this is that last that we will here of this or the possible Indian BlackBerry ban.

[Source]

RIM To Present At Merrill Lynch Technology Conference 2008

Robb Dunewood — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:09:36 +0000

Jeff McDowell, Vice-President, Global Alliances and Edel Ebbs, Vice-President, Investor Relations at Research In Motion will present at the Merrill Lynch Technology Conference 2008 in New York, NY on Tuesday, May 6, 2008. The presentation, which is scheduled to begin at approximately 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time, will be available via live audio webcast on RIM’s website and can be accessed by logging on at www.rim.com/investors/events/index.shtml. A replay of the event will also be available on the website for two weeks following the event.

BlackBery Enterprise Server 4.1 Service Pack 5 Released

Robb Dunewood — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:42:17 +0000

After several delays and HTML formated email support being pulled, the much hyped, much anticipated BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 Service Pack 5 has been released.

Just a few of the features include Free/Busy Lookup, BlackBerry Web Desktop Manager, BlackBerry Monitoring Service, and the ability to download and edit email attachments in their native file formats.

Get more information on BES 4.1 SP5 here…

Verizon Supplies FBI With BlackBerry 8830

Robb Dunewood — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:42:22 +0000

We just picked this up from BlackBerry Cool today, however, last week Verizon announced a worldwide deployment of 19,500 BlackBerrys to 56 or so Bureau field offices. The new devices will allow agents to access the Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) Mobility Program for the first time from handheld devices.

In addition to providing the devices Verizon is also conducting in-person training with agents and transferring phone book contacts to the new BlackBerry 8830s.

“The FBI works hard to provide our agents and professional staff with the technology needed to perform their job anywhere in the world,” said FBI Chief Information Officer Zalmai Azmi. “These devices allow FBI employee’s access not only to the internet, e-mail calendar and taskings, but also to applications critical to our mission such as the no-fly list, missing and kidnapped persons, crime alerts, etc.”

[Source]

RIM Plans To Open BlackBerry R&D Lab In Europe

Robb Dunewood — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:57:31 +0000

According to Thomson Financial News, BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, is planning to open an R&D Lab in Europe, possibly Bochum, the western Germany city which will soon see it’s Nokia Oyj plant close this summer.

The location has not been confirmed, however, the new lab will add 300 jobs wherever it lands.

[Source]

Bell Launches The BlackBerry Curve

Robb Dunewood — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:57:43 +0000

Bell becomes the second North American carrier to launch the BlackBerry Curve 8330 and man, do they make you pay for it if you don’t go with a contract.

The Bell BlackBerry Curve 8830 starts at $549.95 with no contract and goes down from there to $249.95 if you sign your name on the dotted line.

We are still waiting for the BlackBerry Curve 8330 to make its debut down here in the States, however, rumor has it that Sprint may release their branded version as early as next week.

[Source]

Oh No! India May Still Ban The BlackBerry

Robb Dunewood — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:03:49 +0000

We aren’t going to run through the complete play by play, however, to make a long story short, Research in Motion still hasn’t adequately addressed India’s department of telecommunications (DoT) concerns about security on the BlackBerry and thus faces a potential ban in the world’s second largest country.

The DoT wants a monitoring solution that will allow them to read the encrypted messages sent between BlackBerry devices. RIM’s solution addressed BlackBerry to Internet communication, however, BlackBerry to BlackBerry messages are still encrypted. RIM had been given a 15 day deadline to come up with a solution, however, RIM and the DoT failed to come a consensus. Both parties decided to reconvene again on April 21st.

[Source]

Another Month, Another BlackBerry Outage

Robb Dunewood — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:30:40 +0000

Well, it looks like BlackBerry users accross North America experienced a BIS outage today. I’ve been away from the computer all day so I am just now hearing about this, however, there are many reports that the issues have been resolved.

Sad…

Nextel To Get New Wi-Fi / iDen BlackBerry Later This Year

Robb Dunewood — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:09:02 +0000

Are you one of those Nextel BlackBerry users who refuse to switch over to the Sprint side of the house or over to a reputable wireless company who actually has come out with new BlackBerrys in the passed 3 or 4 years? Well, if you are, we may have news for your ears.

This past Tuesday at CITA Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced that they are coming out with a new Wi-Fi enabled, iDen BlackBerry on the Nextel network later this year. I must have missed this earlier in the week, however, it may be just a little bit too late for this to have much impact.

I know that a lot of Nextel BlackBerry users waited as long as they could for a new iDen device to come out, however, it has been 3 years since the BlackBerry 7100i came out and around 5 since the BlackBerry 7520 came out.

Just think, since the BlackBerry 7100i came out, GSM and CDMA carriers have had the BlackBerry 8700, BlackBerry Pearl, the BlackBerry 8800, and the BlackBerry Curve devices come out in various configurations. Sprint has been saying for years that they weren’t going to come out with another Nextel BlackBerry and finally convinced their remaining BlackBerry users to switch.

The problem is that those Nextel BlackBerry users didn’t switch to Sprint. They switched to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. I guess that with all the trouble that Sprint/Nextel is having that they need to get those 37 remaining 7100i users some new gear for fear of losing them to another telecom as well.

[Source]

RIM To Provide Indian Telecoms Solution To Monitor BlackBerrys By Next Week

Robb Dunewood — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:35:21 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, the Indian government said that they would put a ban on BlackBerrys (BlackBerry data that is) if Research in Motion didn’t provide Indian based telecoms that support the BlackBerry a means to monitor traffic being sent and received on RIM’s secure BlackBerry network. BlackBerry data is encrypted which prevents India’s Union Home Ministry from monitoring messages sent on the devices.

Research in Motion is, however, expected to provide a solution early next week, that will ease the concerns and meet the 15 day deadline set by the Indian government back in March.

“BlackBerry is cooperating and they are saying they will come up with a solution to the issue any day now”, said T.V. Ramachandran, director general of the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI). “I am hopeful of seeing a solution even before 9th, I mean some time early next week.”

India currently only has about 400,000 BlackBerry users, however, the country is one of the fastest growing emerging markets and the BlackBerry is poised to do very well there so long as RIM can address the governments security concerns.

[Source]