BlackBerry News

BlackBerry Will Be Among Leading Smartphones To Benefit From Nokia’s Shift To Windows Phone

by Robb Dunewood on February 25, 2011 · 3 comments

National Bank Financial

Based partly on “customer hesitation” with Nokia as it shifts away from Symbian towards Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS on smartphones and also a much larger smartphone market than most had expected, National Bank Financial analyst, Kris Thompson, has bumped up his BlackBerry shipment forecasts in 2012 and 2013 up to 66.8 million BlackBerrys in 2012 and 77.3 million units in 2013, up from 59.9 million and 67.9 million respectively.

“We previously suggested that RIM could win an additional one million units per quarter in the near term from Nokia’s transition so our 2012 estimate could be conservative. While we do expect RIM to lose market share in international markets, the company may hold share better than many expect.”

Thompson also raised his price target for RIM (RIMM) from $75 to $80 and stated that if RIM does allow Android Apps to run on it’s platform that NBF’s tablet forecast for RIM will need to be increased.

[Via Financial Post]

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Press Release: Alt-N Launches MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition for Small-to-Mid-Sized Businesses

by Robb Dunewood on February 23, 2011 · 1 comment

Post image for Press Release: Alt-N Launches MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition for Small-to-Mid-Sized Businesses

Press Release

Alt-N Launches MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition for Small-to-Mid-Sized Businesses

Affordable Windows-Based Email and Messaging Server Now Available with Wireless Synchronization, Security, IT Policy Management and Control Features for BlackBerry Smartphones Built In

Grapevine, TX – Alt-N Technologies today announced the immediate availability of MDaemon® Messaging Server, BlackBerry® Edition – a new edition of the popular low cost Windows®-based MDaemon email and messaging server. The new edition integrates wireless synchronization, security, management and control features for BlackBerry® smartphones and is available as a single software download. MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition is an all-in-one email and messaging solution that makes it easy and affordable for small-to-mid-sized
businesses to provide their employees with secure access to email, calendar and contacts from almost anywhere via the desktop, the web and BlackBerry smartphones.

“MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition is an all-in-one messaging and wireless server that is easy to set up, easy to use, secure, and very affordable,” said Arvel Hathcock, Founder and CEO of Alt-N Technologies. “It’s ideal for both new and established businesses that want the benefits of more advanced smartphone features, controls, security and management.”

“MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition brings together proven strengths of Alt-N’s MDaemon technology and RIM’s BlackBerry enterprise technology, yielding a secure and reliable mobile communications solution for small and mid-sized businesses,” said Peter Devenyi, Vice President, Communications Platform Group at Research In Motion.

Key wireless features include:

  • Email instantly pushed to the user’s BlackBerry smartphone via BlackBerry push technology
  • Wirelessly synchronized calendar, contacts, email folders and personal distribution lists between the MDaemon messaging server and BlackBerry smartphones
  • Flag an email for follow-up from a BlackBerry smartphone
  • Send and respond to meeting invitations from a BlackBerry smartphone
  • Look up a colleague’s calendar availability from a BlackBerry smartphone
  • Edit attachments using Documents To Go® on a BlackBerry smartphone
  • Search for emails on the MDaemon Messaging Server from a BlackBerry smartphone

IT policy management and controls for BlackBerry smartphones; designed for small-to-mid-sized business environments Remote lock or wipe of a BlackBerry smartphone’s content in the event that the device is lost or stolen Integrated MDaemon Instant Messaging for complete and flexible inter-office communications Encrypted data transmission between BlackBerry smartphones and the messaging server
using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Triple Data Encryption Standard (Triple DES)

MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition is easily installed in as little as 30 minutes by running a single installation wizard to set up both the server and BlackBerry smartphones. The solution includes a management console for directly or remotely securing, managing and controlling both email and BlackBerry smartphone functionality.

Pricing starts at US$380 for a six user license. It works with any BlackBerry personal or business service plan that includes email access. It can be installed on a server running Windows® 7, Windows 2008, Windows Vista or Windows 2003, or on a desktop computer running Windows
XP.

MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition is available starting today in over 40 countries and seven languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese,and Japanese. For more information, or to download, visit www.mdaemon-mail-server.com.

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It Looks Like RIM May Be Gearing Up To Release BlackBerry Protect Within The Next Two Weeks

by Robb Dunewood on February 22, 2011 · 1 comment

BlackBerry Protect

Research in Motion sent out an email to BlackBerry Beta Zone members currently participating in the BlackBerry Protect beta letting them know that starting tomorrow, Wed. Feb. 23rd, the service will be shut down for about two weeks or so.  The BlackBerry Protect website will be shut down, client software disabled, and, all BlackBerry Protect user data will be deleted.

The email doesn’t say that when BlackBerry Protect comes back online that it will be the official release of the service, however, it’s not a hard stretch to make that if RIM is blowing everything to do with the BlackBerry Protect beta away, when it comes back in two weeks or so, it will be the officially released version of BlackBerry Connect.

[Via BerryReview]

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BlackBerry App World 2nd To Apple’s App Store In Global App Store Rankings

by Robb Dunewood on February 18, 2011 · 1 comment

Post image for BlackBerry App World 2nd To Apple’s App Store In Global App Store Rankings

When it comes to app stores for mobile devices, there is no question that Apple’s App Store brings in the most revenue, $1.782 billion dollars in 2010 with 87.2% market share.  What you may find interesting, however,  is who comes in second place.

Conventional wisdom would tell you Android Market would be in second place, seeing how Android is taking earth by storm when it comes to smartphones, seeing over 350,000 activations per day.  RIM’s BlackBerry App World, however, holds claim to the number two spot, and, even as big a BlackBerry fan as I am, I thought to myself, “Seriously?”, when I first heard that stat.

BlackBerry App World currently sits only behind the App Store with $165 million in revenue and 7.7% market share in 2010. BlackBerry App World also grew 360.3% year over year compared to the App Store’s 139.9% growth.  RIM is technically gaining on Apple,  but, their share is so small in comparison that taking a few points here and there isn’t terribly difficult.  Android Market was actually in 4th place over all with 4.7% total share, but, Androids growth was 861.5 % over the previous year.  Android Market will catch and surpass RIM relatively quickly if all things remain equal.

[Via CNet]

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Nokia Wanted To Partner With RIM Before It Partnered With Microsoft

by Robb Dunewood on February 15, 2011 · 4 comments

Post image for Nokia Wanted To Partner With RIM Before It Partnered With Microsoft

Arguably the biggest tech news to come out over the past week is the agreement between Nokia and Microsoft where the Finnish mobile phone giant will start to build smartphones that run Windows Phone 7.  It looks like, however, Microsoft wasn’t the first or only mobile OS manufacturer that Nokia was interested in.  TechCrunch Europe is reporting that Nokia explored a relationship with RIM where Nokia devices would have run the BlackBerry OS, but, RIM wasn’t interested in such a partnership.

According to our well-placed sources, discussions between the two companies took place as Nokia in parallel explored the Google and Microsoft options. How far those discussions went isn’t entirely clear, although our source says that RIM wasn’t interested, but either way the fact that they took place at all is intriguing in itself. Not least because Elop has since attempted to airbrush out RIM’s place in the competitive landscape.

[Read]

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Research In Motion Acquires CRM Start-Up Gist

by Robb Dunewood on February 14, 2011 · 0 comments

Gist

We first heard that Research in Motion was in talks to acquire Gist, a Seattle based social CRM start-up company just before Christmas, last year.  Today, not quite two months later, Alan Brenner, SVP, BlackBerry Platform at RIM, announced via Inside BlackBerry that Gist has, indeed, joined Research in Motion.

[Read]

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BlackBerry At Mobile World Congress 2011 In A Big Way

by Robb Dunewood on February 13, 2011 · 0 comments

Blackberry at Mobile World Congress 2011

Mobile World Conference, one of the biggest wireless industry events of the year, kicks off tomorrow in Barcelona, Spain and Research in Motion is definitely making BlackBerry’s presence felt.  RIM has put up blackberrymwc11.com that will be updated with updates from the @BlackBerryScene Twitter account and the BlackBerry booth seems to be about as big as the one at CES.

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Kik Ineractive Files Statement of Defence And Counterclaim Against Research In Motion

by Robb Dunewood on February 10, 2011 · 0 comments

Kik Messenger

Kik Interactive, the company behind the popular cross platform mobile instant messaging client, Kik Messenger, has filed a statement of defence and a counterclaim against Research in Motion who filed a patent infringement suit against Kik Interactive back in December of 2010, after first removing Kik Messenger from BlackBerry App World and disabling push notifications to the app.

RIM claims that Kik Interactive CEO, Ted Livingstone, while working at Research in Motion, gained access to sensitive data regarding BlackBerry Messenger and used this knowledge in during the creation of Kik Messenger.  RIM actually sued Kik Interactive alleging breach of confidentiality, trademark infringement, and patent infringement.

In Kik’s statement (available here, 7MB PDF), the company “denies that it was developing a cross-platform instant messaging client in secret or had access to RIM’s BBM confidential documents, denies that it’s infringing on RIM’s trademarks or patents, and found prior art (EP093213, JP10013881, Outlook 2000, and a whole list of documents in Schedules A & B) which Kik alleges makes RIM’s asserted patents invalid.”

To make a long story short, Kik says that RIM, who initially supported Kik Messenger, saw it’s overnight success as a threat to BlackBerry Messenger causing “senior executives at RIM to embark on a campaign to destroy or seriously harm Kik, including unilaterally terminating the various agreements between Kik and RIM, suspending and then removing Kik Messenger from BlackBerry App World and commencing this lawsuit, including a meritless patent infringement claim which RIM knew had no realistic chance of success.”

As David Lam theorizes, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle…

[Via David Lam Law Blog]

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BlackBerry Theme Studio 6 Beta 2 Now Available

by Robb Dunewood on January 30, 2011 · 0 comments

BlackBerry Theme Builder

Research in Motion has announced that BlackBerry Theme Studio 6 Beta 2 is now available and that you can download it from the BlackBerry Developer Zone.  BlackBerry Theme Studio 6 Beta 2 provides extensive support for new (and upgraded) BlackBerry smartphones with BlackBerry 6 OS, as well as robust import functionality for theme projects created using previous versions of BlackBerry Theme Studio.

This beta release supports theme development for all BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry 6, that are currently in-market, as well as simplified theme export for BlackBerry App World™ in order to quickly submit your BlackBerry 6 themes.

Download BlackBerry Theme Studio 6 over at BlackBerry Developer Zone and find out more on how to use it over on the the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog.

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