If have you haven’t looked and any tech blogs, picked up a newspaper, or watched any news broadcast since last Thursday, you may not have known that Apple held a special press conference Friday to address reception issues that plague the iPhone 4. Steve Jobs, for the most part, down played the issue kind of making it seem like it is more perception than reality (nothing shocking there), however, did address iPhone 4 owners concerns by basically giving all iPhone users a case.
Steve Jobs, however, didn’t stop there. In a move that is pretty classless no matter how you look at it, he drug Research in Motion and Nokia into the conversation by, not only stating that handsets from both carriers suffer from the same type of problem plaguing the iPhone 4, but actually showing a video of a BlackBerry demonstrating the issue. Needless to say, this did not sit well with RIM…
RIM Co-CEOs, in a joint response to Apple, had this to say:
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Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said in a research note yesterday that BlackBerry 6, the next version of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry operating system, may not come out on CDMA networks like Sprint and Verizon until 2011.
Almost 80% of all wireless networks use GSM technology, so, it makes sense that RIM would target the biggest audience for the release their newest OS. We believe that the BlackBerry 9800 (BlackBerry Slider) will be the first device to run BlackBerry 6 and that it will come out on AT&T in the August / September timeframe. The problem for RIM, however, is that most BlackBerry devices are purchased here in the United States where the majority of BlackBerry users are CDMA BlackBerry users.
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According to Ashok Kumar, analyst and managing director at Rodman & Renshaw, the rumored 7″ BlackBerry Tablet will come out at the end of this year even though it was originally supposed to come out at the beginning of next.
Research In Motion (RIMM, Market Perform) is trying to pull forward the launch of the 7-inch touchscreen tablet from early next year to year end…with a marginal point of differentiation being the front- and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing…
Kumar also states that the BlackBerry Tablet will be supplied by Marvell, current supplier of the BlackBerry 9700 processor. A possible candidate is the 1 GHz Armada 610 which boasts full HD 1080p playback, 16-megapixel image captures, advanced 3D graphics, and is geared towards tablets and e-readers.
[Via CNet]
BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 Service Pack 2 has been released and is ready for download. The big to do in this service pack is the addition of policies and features for employee liable (employee owned) BlackBerry devices.
New BES 5.0 SP 2 features include:
- Remove corporate content from employee owned devices without changing employees personal information and apps
- A new Individual Liable Device Policy to let users access personal email and make calls and view email even when the device is locked. It also stops comingling between enterprise data and social networking apps.
For a complete list of BES 5.0 SP2 features check out the release notes. Download BES 5.0 SP 2 here.
I was having a conversation with a few friends recently all of whom know that I am really into smartphones, the BlackBerry in particular. One of them had just gotten a new iPhone 4 and was trying to convince the rest of us, all BlackBerry users, that the iPhone 4 was going to crush the BlackBerry and put RIM out of business. Being the smart Alec that I am I asked if he was using the term “crushed” loosely like when he said the iPhone would crush the BlackBerry, the iPhone 3G would crush the BlackBerry, and the iPhone 3Gs would crush the BlackBerry.
After my BlackBerry using friends and I stopped giving it to my iPhone buddy for being oblivious to reality when it comes to his iPhone fanboyism, one of them said that an Android device with a good keyboard would make them move off the BlackBerry a lot quicker than an iPhone ever would. Everyone, myself included, agreed…
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The first thing I thought when I first heard the rumor that Research in Motion may be interested in buying web browser maker Opera, was that something has gone horribly wrong with the upcoming WebKit BlackBerry Browser. It turns out, however, the RIM may be interested in acquiring Opera because of an acquisition that Opera itself has recently made.
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One might think that revenue growth of over 24% to $4.24 billion, a 41% earnings per share increase to $1.38, an increase in device shipments of over 43% to 11.2 billion, and 4.9 million net new subscribers taking the total subscriber base up 60% quarter over quarter to 46 million, would actually be considered a pretty darn good quarter. A pretty darn good quarter for this would have been if it weren’t for the pesky analysts that thought a pretty darn good good quarter was going to be most awesome and outstanding quarter.
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Not that we didn’t see this coming after RIM’s acquisition of Viigo back in March, the BlackBerry maker has decided to end of life the Windows Mobile version of the application. As of right now, you can no longer download Viigo for Windows Mobile and support will be killed on July 21st.
Research in Motion is sponsoring a BlackBerry Messenger Contest where the grand prize winner will receive $5000 for the best captioned picture or video telling the world how they use BlackBerry Messenger.
Other Great Prizes Include:
- Runners-Up: The second and third highest scoring entries, selected from the top 25 highest scoring entries, will receive $1,000 to share an experience with their BBM group, or do whatever else they can dream up with the cash.
- Top 25 BBM: Twenty-five Top 25 Prizes will each be awarded a prize pack consisting of one Music Gateway, one Multimedia headset and one BBM t-shirt.
- Most Viral: One winner, selected from the top 200 Most Viral entries, will receive $500 to share an experience with their BBM group, or do whatever else they can dream up with the cash. Learn about Most Viral.
The odds of winning (at the time of this posting) quite high, as, just under 200 participants have submitted entries. That gives you better than a 1 in 8 chance to win.
See contest requirements and find out how to enter after the jump…
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