Poor RIM. They just can’t catch a break. Just two days after the official unveiling of their new BBX platform (the company’s last bullet, so to speak), they’re already having legal papers thrown in their face.
As it turns out, the BBX name (while rather fitting, given that it’s a merger of BlackBerryOS and QNX) wasn’t free for the taking. BASIS International, a software development company out of New Mexico, claims the trademark is theirs and that they’re willing to fight for it.
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Here’s a noodle-scratcher to start your day off: Stuff Middle East is reporting that RIM and Porsche Design are teaming up for an event next Thursday that promises to show off an “exclusive collaboration” between the two companies. Could the rumored Porsche-styled BlackBerry finally see the light of day? → Read More
It hasn’t been an easy year for RIM. The Playbook came out half-baked, their handset line has taken a pummeling from its ambitious competitors, the businesses and governments of the world are alternately hassling and blaming them, and as if that wasn’t enough, they just had a catastrophic global network failure and their olive branch is unlikely to fend off lawsuits. Did someone at RIM HQ break a mirror back in 2008?
The doomsayers (like us) are plentiful, saying that it’s all over, pointing to shrinking market share, incompetent management, and general inertia. But the game’s not up yet and their complacence would make sense, looking back in a few years, if it turns out they had one more bullet in the chamber. Did they fire six last-ditch efforts to reinvigorate the company, or only five? They don’t seem to know themselves. Well, they’re about to pull the trigger and find out. → Read More
Now that RIM’s global network is out of the woods, carriers are having to deal with the public relations nightmare that the outage has caused.
Given the sheer number of vocal BlackBerry users gumming up Twitter with calls for compensation, we (and all of their customers) are left wondering how RIM is going to handle this. → Read More
In a press conference held today RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie confirmed that BlackBerry service has been restored worldwide, and users will be receiving all of their delayed emails and messages shortly.
Other than that the press conference was light on answers, mostly because it seems RIM’s upper brass don’t have any yet. In fairness, they’ve had a lot on their plate during the past few days. Lazaridis was reportedly overseeing the response team himself, and only managed to tear himself away from the goings-on early this morning. → Read More
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
RIM held a quick press conference call today to address the ongoing outages which started in Europe but have spread to the rest of the world, including the US. The message was straightforward: a “core switch failure” in their European unit (though they did not give the exact location) that failed to turn over to one of the backup systems. The total failure resulted in a backlog of messages that they are chewing through at this moment. → Read More
Oh boy. As if yesterday’s BIS outage wasn’t bad enough for RIM, it looks like whatever solution they managed to cook up isn’t quite doing the trick. Reports of yet another outage have begun to make the rounds, and users in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East are once again unable to browse the web, send emails, or fire off BBM messages.
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RIM seems to be learning very quickly that when it rains, it pours. Word of a BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) outage quickly began making the rounds this morning, leaving (once) loyal customers in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East without email and web access.
This is the second outage RIM has dealt with in as many months: their popular BBM service went down this past September, shortly after the company released their disappointing quarterly financials. → Read More
It was all the way back in February when RIM first promised that “many, if not most” BlackBerry handsets in 2011 will feature NFC technology. It proved true with both the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, along with the BlackBerry Curve 9350/9360/9370, and we should see plenty more where that came from.
That said, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie had one more trick up his sleeve at this week’s GITEX conference in Dubai, unveiling for the first time BlackBerry Tag. → Read More
Well, what do we have here? BBM for… Android?
New leaked photos appear to show a beta version of BBM running on an unspecified (and clearly uncared for) Android device. The validity of these shots is questionable, as they were sent to T3 from an anonymous source and a leak of this kind would take about five minutes for a Photoshop noob to complete.
However, they do add a little weight to ongoing rumors that suggest RIM has plans to roll out its BlackBerry Messenger service on outside platforms, including Android and iOS. → Read More
We reported earlier this week that Staples and Office Depot are running sales promotions for the ailing BlackBerry PlayBook, and today another big-box retailer has jumped into the fray. CNET reports that Best Buy has begun to sell all models of the PlayBook with a hefty $200 discount.
That price break brings RIM’s 16GB model down to $299, the 32GB model to $399, and the 64GB model to $499.
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Canadian RIM fans have been privy to some solid deals on RIM’s ailing PlayBook tablet recently, and now those price cuts are beginning to pop up Stateside. Both Office Depot and Staples are now offering their selection of PlayBooks with some significant discounts. → Read More
The analysts at Gartner have released a new report today, detailing tablet market trends and forecasts. Not surprisingly, their findings confirm the obvious: the iPad is killing it. According to the firm, the Apple iPad will account for 73.4% of tablet sales worldwide this year, and no other platform besides Android will have more than a 5% share of the market during this time.
In addition, Apple will continue to have more than 50% of the tablet market until 2014, according to research VP Carolina Milanesi, a stat that she attributes to Apple’s foresight to create this market in the first place, and Apple’s “superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services.” → Read More
RIM’s stock took a bit of a tumble after the release of their underwhelming Q2 earnings report last week, and it looks as though it won’t stop dropping anytime soon. Before the market closed for the day, RIM share prices continued to inch downward until it reached (at time of writing) $21.52: RIM’s lowest in five years. → Read More
RIM, to put it mildly, has been having it rough these past few days. Among other things, they’ve failed to hit their quarterly revenue goal, sold far fewer PlayBooks than they had hoped, and potentially let their market share slip into the single digits.
After all that, RIM didn’t need any more problems, but another one has popped up anyway: it seems that their BBM and email service is partially down in a handful of countries. → Read More
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” And then times got worse, and worse, and worse. At least for RIM.
After jumping through hoops for the Saudi Arabian government, and then doing the same in India, South Africa has decided to get in on the fun and ask for access to BBM messages. The government’s reasoning was security-related, of course, but also had to do with the fact that UK has plans to do the same. → Read More
Though Slacker and Pandora have made the migration, the BlackBerry App World’s selection of music apps is pretty limited compared to competing platforms. In fact, the App World is found wanting in a couple different categories. But that doesn’t mean RIM isn’t open to improvement, albeit incremental improvement. That said, RIM today announced its BBM Music app.
It’s basically a subscription music app with a strong social element. For $4.99 monthly, you can have 50 different songs on what RIM is calling your BBM Music profile. From there, it really all depends on popularity. → Read More
RIM announced well in advance of the PlayBook’s launch that it would be able to play nice with certain Android apps, but aside from a leaked beta, PlayBook owners still have nothing to show for it. RIM may not play the waiting game again with their forthcoming string of QNX-powered BlackBerrys though, as the word from Waterloo is that they will be able to run Android apps right out of the gate.
Bloomberg’s sources close to the project have said the Android App Player will be part of the stock software on QNX BlackBerrys when they launch in early 2012. While the addition could potentially add thousands of apps to RIM’s underpopulated App World, it may not be as straightforward as one may hope. → Read More
BlackBerry’s Enterprise Server has long been a mainstay of the corporate world, but considering the costs involved, many small businesses haven’t been able to justify the cost. Enter the BlackBerry Management Center, a cloud service meant for exactly those small businesses who want some of the power of BES without the corresponding price tag. → Read More
