January 22nd, 2012

RIM’s New Playbook: The CEO Sneak

96027_Eagles_Giants_Football

It was a big day for football fans, with both the AFC and NFC Championships taking place this afternoon and this evening. The games grab more than a few eyeballs every year — last year’s championships grabbed 54.8 million and 51.9 million viewers, respectively. While the numbers aren’t out yet for today’s games, the viewership is expected to be equally as enormous.

That’s why so many in the Twittersphere have been so quick to point out that, nestled quietly behind a hotly contested NFC Championship between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers, and an equally great game over in the AFC, was a fairly huge announcement for the maker of BlackBerry, Research In Motion. During Championship Sunday, RIM quietly released a statement saying that its co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, are stepping down and will be replaced by current COO for products and sales, Thorsten Hein. → Read More

January 22nd, 2012

RIM Co-CEOs To Step Down; COO To Take The Reins

sadberry

I suppose some might have seen this coming. In December, Research In Motion (RIM) released their third quarter earnings, which were yet another disappointment for the struggling maker of BlackBerry. RIM Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis announced subsequently that they would only draw yearly salaries of $1 to help combat the company’s financial woes.

Today, it seems the pressure has become too great, and a management shuffle is under way. The Globe has reported that the co-CEOs, after a year of pressure from investors and stockholders, have stepped down from the position. Company insider and current COO Thorsten Heins will be replacing them as the new chief executive. → Read More

November 29th, 2011

With BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, RIM Wants To Help Enterprises Manage Android, iOS Devices

blackberry

Research In Motion this morning introduced a new enterprise mobility solution dubbed BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, aiming to help its business and government clients manage employees’ smartphones and tablets running the BlackBerry operating system, but also Android and iOS devices like the iPhone and the iPad.

Currently in early beta testing with a limited number of enterprise customers, RIM expects to kick off a closed beta program in January 2012, with general availability scheduled for late March 2012 (pricing unknown). → Read More

November 5th, 2011

52 Pick-Up, or, Where I Went Wrong

52_pickup

Happy anniversary to me: I’ve now been writing this here weekly column for exactly one year. In that time I have opined, prescribed, and predicted many things. And now, as part of my one-man crusade for greater opinion-journalism accountability, I’m going to take a moment to go back and look at what I got right … and where I went horribly, hilariously wrong.

With luck this will be an annual event. I mean, assuming Erick doesn’t take a look at this track record and decide to can me on the spot.

(cracks knuckles)

OK, then: without any further ado, let’s see what I said over the last 52 weeks, and why… → Read More

October 24th, 2011

Former RIM VP Tyler Lessard Lands CMO Job At Fixmo

tyler

In a high-profile departure, Tyler Lessard quit his job as VP of BlackBerry Global Alliances & Developer Relations at Research in Motion (RIM) at the end of last month. He worked at RIM, a sinking ship, for over a decade.

He’s now landed at mobile risk management company Fixmo, the company announced this morning. → Read More

October 13th, 2011

CNN: Blackberry Outage Impacting Users On Almost Every Planet

planet

There’s no escape. The Blackberry service outage is now impacting users on almost every planet, CNN reports. Tatooine and Coruscant appear to not have been affected yet, but users all over Geonosis, Naboo and Yavin were reportedly hit hard. Our thoughts are with their inhabitants.

(Via @dccrowley and @mpoppel, but probably first noted by @brundle_fly) → Read More

June 28th, 2011

As Seesmic Bids Adieu To RIM, UberMedia Introduces UberSocial 1.2 For BlackBerry

The popular UberSocial Twitter client for BlackBerry (formerly known as UberTwitter) just got an update with a bunch of new features and bug fixes.

Notably, its developer UberMedia is doubling down on its BlackBerry app around the same time one of its rivals, Seesmic, is abandoning the BlackBerry platform.

One of the new features in UberSocial for Blackberry 1.2 is called “Inner Circle”, which basically lets you group together the most important people you follow in an exclusive timeline, alongside the traditional timeline. → Read More

June 23rd, 2011

Fly Or Die: Can RIM Survive?

Hot on the heels of my scathing diatribe against the once-mighty Blackberry empire, Erick and I explore the current financial and development situation that has befallen our neighbors to the North. Plus, we have an extra special guest who, as Erick notes, will “build an app for any platform, even Windows Phone 7″ but bailed on BBOS.

As I wrote in my post, I wish it didn’t have to be this way. RIM has long been a powerhouse in the mobile world and their failure to adapt mirrors Nokia’s: it’s the sense that internally, the successes of the past defined the actions of the present, resulting in out-dated thinking. → Read More

June 15th, 2011

Dolby Sues RIM Over Patent Infringement, Aims To Halt Sales Of BlackBerry Devices

Breaking - Dolby has just announced that it has filed patent infringement lawsuits in the United States and Germany against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

The lawsuits seek recovery of financial damages and injunctions to halt sales of “many RIM products” that Dolby claims infringes its patents. → Read More

June 10th, 2011

RIM: BlackBerry PlayBook Hitting 16 Additional Markets Over The Next 30 Days

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) this morning announced intentions to debut the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in an additional 16 markets over the next 30 days, including the UK, Hong Kong, France, India, Spain and Australia.

So far, RIM’s iPad competitor has only been available to customers in North America (since April 19, 2011), and has drawn mixed reviews. → Read More

May 6th, 2011

Fly Or Die: The BlackBerry Playbook Vs. The Color Nook

Tablets and electronic book readers are on a collision course. In this episode of Fly or Die , ChrunchGear editor John Biggs and I discuss the pros and cons of the new BlackBerry Playbook and the Color Nook from Barnes & Noble. The PlayBook is fast and a solid effort from our much-beleaguered Canadian friends. But is it too little, too late?

If you are a BackBerry user and want a tablet that syncs to your phone, this could be for you. (In the video, Biggs keeps saying Android, but he means BlackBerry—too many Four Lokos before the taping). I actually like the PlayBook better than most Android tablets. But if it’s incredible apps that you want, the PlayBook’s choices are still pretty limited.

The Color Nook is a different story. → Read More

March 22nd, 2011

RIM Reveals BlackBerry PlayBook Versions, Pricing (Starts At $499), Retail Partners

In case you were holding out for a BlackBerry PlayBook: good news. Research In Motion this morning announced (expected) plans to make the tablet computer available in more than 20,000 retail outlets in the U.S. and Canada. Indeed, pricing starts at $499.

In the U.S., outlets include AT&T, Best Buy, Office Depot, RadioShack, Sprint and Staples.

Best Buy has already announced that the tablet computer is scheduled to be available from all Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores in the United States, as well as Best Buy and Future Shop stores in Canada, on April 19. → Read More

March 9th, 2011

BlackBerry PlayBook Will Come With 7digital Music Store Installed At US Launch

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion this morning announced that it will launch its PlayBook tablet computer with 7digital‘s music store pre-installed.

The music store will come installed on the tablet at its launch in the United States and Canada, with further international roll out in 2011, the companies said. → Read More

March 5th, 2011

RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It’s An Onrushing Train – Or Is It?

playbook

Strange things are afoot in my hometown of Waterloo, Canada, which doubles as Research In Motion’s headquarters. ShopSavvy says that someone there has been running their Android app — on BlackBerry devices. Separately, Bloomberg has reported that RIM’s forthcoming PlayBook tablet will run Android apps. A video from the Mobile World Congress allegedly shows a BlackBerry employee confirming “We’ll also support Android apps.” Their UK managing director refuses to comment on the subject. And if rumours of the mountain en route to Mohammed aren’t enough, there are also reports of Mohammed travelling to the mountain: BGR claims that RIM will soon release their prized BlackBerry Messenger as an Android/iOS app.

Thus far it’s all just smoke and rumors, no confirmed fire … which is also how one could describe the PlayBook itself. RIM first announced the device back in September. My very first TechCrunch post in November was in part about how RIM should embrace Android, he said slightly smugly. Since then, Samsung has released the Galaxy Tab, Dell the Streak 7, and Motorola the Xoom; next week, the iPad 2 will emerge — and yet the PlayBook still has no firm ship date. But at least RIM have been busy on the BlackBerry front, right? I mean, in the last four months, they have announced or released … er … exactly zero new handsets. (They have, however, announced three new VaporBooks. I’m sorry, PlayBooks.) Perhaps they were focused on shoring up their inferior app-development tools? Ask this developer, whose caustic and hilarious rant about RIM’s extreme developer-unfriendliness went viral in the hacker community last week. → Read More

January 27th, 2011

eMarketer: Apple Will Soon Lead The US Smartphone Market – But Not For Long

According to eMarketer, Apple is to pass Research In Motion as the leader of the US smartphone market this year, only to be overtaken by Android in 2012.

eMarketer, which bases its forecasts on analysis of research estimates and methodologies from multiple firms who monitor the smartphone market, estimates Apple took a 28% share of the US smartphone user market in 2010, just above the 24% of users who use a device running Android. → Read More

January 26th, 2011

Gartner Forecasts Mobile App Store Revenues Will Hit $15 Billion in 2011

How big a business are mobile apps? In a new report, market research firm Gartner forecasts that global mobile app store revenues will triple from $5.2 billion last year to $15 billion in 2011, and keep growing to an astounding $58 billion by 2014. As with any forecast of a hypergrowth market, you can be sure this one will change in six months, and the further out you go the more guesswork involved. (Remember, less than a year ago nobody was even able to predict how many iPads would be sold this year). But here is one prediction you can count on: you will be hearing these numbers thrown around a lot all year long until a better forecast comes along.

Gartner breaks down the forecast into advertising revenues and paid downloads (including in-app purchases), as you can see from the chart above. Paid downloads and other direct purchases make up the majority of the expected revenues, but mobile advertising is expected to grow nicely over time into a multi-billion dollar market. → Read More

December 2nd, 2010

RIM Buys Developer The Astonishing Tribe To Improve PlayBook And Mobile UI

RIM has announced a purchase today—UI developer The Astonishing Tribe (a.k.a TAT). It looks like RIM will be using TAT’s talent to help improve the UI for Blackbery’s new tablet PlayBook as well as for its mobile smartphones. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As stated in a post: “Today we are pleased to confirm plans for The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) team to join Research In Motion (RIM). We’re excited that the TAT team will be joining RIM and bringing their talent to the BlackBerry PlayBook and smartphone platforms.” → Read More

November 16th, 2010

RIM CEO Jim Balsillie To Steve Jobs: "You Don’t Need An App For The Web"

Research in Motion CEO Jim Balsillie may still be smarting from the fact that Apple passed it in smartphone market share last quarter. Steve Jobs made a point to rub it in during Apple’s most recent earnings conference call: ““We’ve now past RIM, and I don’t see them catching up to us in the near future.”

Asked what he would say to Jobs if he were present today at the Web 2.0 Summit, Balsillie shot back: “You finally showed up.” The implication being that RIM practically invented the smartphone category and is not going anywhere. Balsillie went on to contrast the Blackberry approach to Apple’s when it comes to web apps. There may be 300,000 apps for the iPhone and iPad, but the only app you really need is the browser. “You don’t need an app for the Web,” he says, and that is equally true for the mobile Web. → Read More

November 6th, 2010

How RIM’s PlayBook Could Have Succeeded

blackberry_playbook

Editor’s note: Guest author Jon Evans is a novelist, journalist, and software engineer.

Oh, Research In Motion. You never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

RIM was born in my home town, at my alma mater, so it’s depressing watching their empire rot and crumble before the Android / iPhone onslaught. I had high hopes for their new tablet, a potential game-changer – but alas, they’ve hamstrung it before it’s even been released. Here’s what they should have done with it: → Read More

August 24th, 2010

Research In Motion Buys Mobile Storefront Platform Cellmania

It looks like Blackberry developer Research In Motion has made a purchase today: Cellmania, a company that builds and licenses the software that drives many mobile phone stores. According to Cellmania’s website, the company is “now part of Research In Motion.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cellmania’s technology powers mobile ecosystems for mobile operators, infrastructure providers and content owners. The statement on the company’s website says that Cellmania will continue to bring it’s expertise in Application Store Management to the Blackberry platform. So clearly, the company’s technology will be used to boost BlackBerry’s App World. → Read More

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