A Mizuho Securities hire, Abhey Lamba, has started Apple coverage at his new firm with a $635 target, says Barron's. The analyst argues that Apple will continue to succeed, and that Wall Street consensus figures are probably too low, despite more intense competition. Android smartphones are mainly taking away share from Nokia and Research in Motion, not the iPhone, he notes.
RIM said Wednesday that BlackBerry 7- and 7.1-powered devices have earned a coveted FIPS 140-2 certification. The standard means they can now be used by the US and Canadian governments, as they meet stringent security stipulations as outlined by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA). The current devices that comply include the Bold 9900, 9930, and 9790; the Torch 9850, 9860, and 9810; and the Curve 9350, 9360, 9370, and 9380.
Research In Motion co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are believed to be holding closed-door meetings to discuss potential strategies for a shakeup in the company's leadership. Many investors have come to equate the company's ongoing troubles with the unique executive structure, which is dominated by two head executives who also serve as co-chairmen of the board.
Software company Basis International has filed a lawsuit against Research In Motion, accusing the latter company of trademark infringement. The dispute centers around the term "BBX", which RIM uses as a label for its latest mobile operating system. Basis claims it has been using the same term for software that runs on desktop platforms, such as Windows and Mac OS, and products that are used by developers who create apps for iOS and Android.
Research In Motion has confirmed that Frenny Bawa, managing director of the company's Indian division, has stepped down from her position to pursue other interests. Although the executive's reasons for leaving RIM were not fully disclosed, the announcement follows strong pressure from the Indian government to gain access to encrypted communications sent via BlackBerry Messenger.
RIM's new BlackBerry Torch line is a reboot for the company. After the Storm and Storm2 failed to stem the tide of the iPhone and later Android, the new Torch shows signs RIM has learned its lesson: a faster processor, a touch interface, and the death of its infamous click-down screen. But is it enough? Our review of the Torch 9850 and 9860 will see if RIM is back in form or if its rivals are still moving faster.
Research In Motion currently faces a legal dispute over the trademark BBX, which represents the BlackBerry maker's upcoming unified OS for smartphones and tablets. Just two days after RIM introduced BBX, software company Basis filed a lawsuit accusing the Canadian company of infringing its BBx trademark that is tied to a computer programming language.
Research In Motion has reportedly ruled out the possibility of expanding BlackBerry Messenger service to additional platforms. When pressed by DevCon attendees inquiring about Android support in the future, BlackBerry Developer Program senior director Chris Smith claimed there are "no plans for it." Vice president of developer relations Alec Saunders also claimed he "wasn't aware of it."
Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced a new version of its WebWorks SDK for tablets. The company has also updated its SDK for Adobe Air application developers. With the new 2.1 update of the Webworks SDK, RIM has added several APIs to its developers' tools. An In App Payment Services API lets vendors sell apps directly from BlackBerry PlayBook apps written with the code. New camera and microphone apps similarly give apps the option of recording imagery and audio.
Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, announced that its COO Don Morrison is taking a leave of absence. The company gave medical reasons for his leaving. It expects him to return to the position in the fall.
RIM kicked off the start of BlackBerry World with its first truly modern smartphone. The Bold 9900 series is the first to have both a fixed QWERTY keyboard and focuses on an exceptionally sharp, 2.8-inch 640x480 touchscreen. The company is also aiming for its first true iPhone-like responsiveness with a 60 frames per second interface that doesn't lag input like on the Storm or Torch.
RIM has often been the definition of conservative: for the past few years, the BlackBerry has almost always been slight variations on a theme and still devoted to the suit-and-tie audience. The BlackBerry PlayBook is the first real sign of the Waterloo company trying to shake its stigma with a genuinely new interface and an emphasis on 3D games and other features that would have been borderline heretical in the past. And, for some, an admission that Apple caught it off-guard with the iPad. We'll find out in our review of the PlayBook whether the tablet is enough to break free of a limiting reputation -- and whether the iPad 2 should be looking over its shoulder.
RIM on Tuesday began shipping its long-in-coming BlackBerry PlayBook. The seven-inch tablet should now be at Best Buy, Staples, and other stores. Only Wi-Fi versions are available so far and cost $499, $599, and $699 for 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB of storage respectively.
The second pre-release BlackBerry in as many days has received a hands-on Friday. RIM's previously slipped-out Torch 2 is siad to be superficially near-identical to the original but saw huge leaps due to the hardware, BGR found. The 640x480 screen is "absolutely great" and matched by a much faster 1.2GHz processor that could "light a fire."
RIM's BlackBerry Storm3 has turned up in controlled conditions through a leak and simultaneous hands-on. The phone, also known by its Monaco (CDMA) and Monza (GSM) handles, will now drop the Storm name entirely and may just go as the BlackBerry Touch. The design is "thinner, faster and sexier," than most BlackBerry phones, BGR said, and would drop the often disliked SureType screen, in part to get the multi-touch needed for BlackBerry 6.1.
IDC predicted on Tuesday both that Android would keep its lead until 2015 but that Windows Phone would overtake the iPhone for second place. Android would take 39.5 percent this year but gain only slightly to hit 45.4 percent four years later. Nokia's Windows Phone switch would end up reversing its situation and Symbian's predicted 20.9 percent share in 2011 over to Windows Phone by 2015.
RIM during the conference call discussing its latest results late Thursday gave hints that it expected much from its 2011 BlackBerry roadmap and OS 6.1. Co-chief Jim Balsillie said that "jaws dropped" among carriers and that they had an "outstanding" level of commitment, even in the face of devices from rivals. The only risk was getting the devices on time, he said.
RIM is clashing with carriers over plans for NFC-equipped BlackBerry phones that could be a sign of things to come for Apple and others, unnamed carrier officials said Thursday. The company is fighting with GSM carriers like AT&T, Rogers and T-Mobile over where to store the personal identifiers needed for making the short-range wireless payments. Carriers want the information to be encrypted in SIM cards so that it can be portable, the WSJ said, but RIM wants the information stored in a secure memory partition on the phone.
Mosaid late Wednesday sued as many technology firms as possible in hopes of profiting off the success of Wi-Fi. The Ottawa-based company's complaint targeted major device makers such as ASUS, Canon, Dell, Intel, and RIM as well as those building chipsets, such as Atheros and Marvell, for allegedly infringing six patents covering Wi-Fi, including network finding and the orthogonal multiplexing used for the faster speeds in the newer 802.11n spec. CEO John Lindgren insisted that "all" devices using Wi-Fi were dependent on the patents and had to pay royalties.
A recent zero-day BlackBerry 6 hack at the Pwn2Own convention has prompted RIM to add a knowledge base article that will help users secure their phones. The approach is blunt and calls on users to turn off JavaScript for the browser until RIM develops a more permanent fix. Older versions aren't known to be affected.
The ongoing security concerns saga in India over BlackBerry Messenger service continues, with the latest being that security agencies remain unsatisfied. Junior telecoms minister Sachin Pilot made the statement during a parliament meeting on Wednesday. The government security agency remains bent on getting access to RIM's corporate e-mail service, something RIM has said is impossible multiple times.
A new in-depth look into RIM (PDF) has revealed some of the insight into RIM's past and current struggles to compete with Apple. An anonymous former worker at the BlackBerry maker said it didn't understand the appeal of the iPhone. While the 2007 version was "badly flawed from day one" through a lack of core features, Reuters heard, RIM made presumptions about what users wanted that played mostly into its existing strengths in corporate environments while ignoring important app and interface elements for everyday users.
Motorola Xoom sales might peak at just 300,000 devices in its first quarter, Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt said in a research note Friday. Checks saw an average of about two Xooms sold per day at Verizon stores, which led McCourt to the figure. Best Buy wasn't necessarily accounted for and might have added to the total.
RIM enterprise strategy VP David Heit at a Boston event said the BlackBerry PlayBook would have an official video chat app. Instead of relying on third-party apps like Android, it should have a new peer-to-peer app intended for all users, similar to FaceTime. Heit didn't tell PCWorld if it would use a standard that would allow chatting with other platforms or if it would be limited to the PlayBook, although the current roadmap shows no BlackBerry phones with front cameras this year.
RIM late Tuesday scored a deal to give the BlackBerry PlayBook a preloaded music store. 7digital's store will be preloaded on the tablet and give access to about 13 million pay-per-track songs. The store is the most popular on BlackBerry phones and is one of the few to have an international scope, having grown beyond Europe to reach the US two years ago.
Canadian wireless provider Telus on Tuesday said it will soon add the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate 4G to its lineup. The twin to the Galaxy S 4G available at T-Mobile in the US, it matches the same 21Mbps HSPA+ download speeds, making it the fastest online of all smartphones available in Canada. The handset will otherwise sport the same four-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, Android 2.2, and the ability to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Android was still increasing its US market share in January but wasn't necessarily helping out its partners, comScore found in a new study. Google overtook RIM for smartphone share for the first time and reached a new high of 31.2 percent, up from 28.7 percent in December as the BlackBerry collapsed to 30.4 percent. Apple was still in third place and had gained share since October but was virtually flat.
RIM's software strategy for 2011 has been given out in full with a roadmap that showed the first signs of BlackBerry 7. The future OS is said to be starting "core integration" in mid-October and to have finished by the end of November. N4BB's copy didn't say for sure if it would bring in the new QNX foundations behind the PlayBook or if this meant shipping devices.
Fulfilling recent BlackBerry Protect in a bid to compete with Apple and Google on smartphone cloud services. The long-in-testing feature gives individual users the option of remotely locating, messaging and (if necessary) wiping to help find or secure a lost or stolen phone. Owners also get a full backup service that safeguards not just calendars and contacts but browser bookmarks, memos, tasks and the saved text messaging history.
Marvell in its financial results call on Friday may have given signs that RIM is stepping away from high-end BlackBerry phones. CEO Sehat Sutardja blamed a steeper than expected 34 percent revenue drop primarily on RIM moving to "entry-level smartphones," where Marvell doesn't have chips to offer. Most of Marvell's designs in the BlackBerry line have focused on flagships like the Bold and Torch.
RIM's Chief Marketing Officer Keith Pardy said on Friday that he was quitting the company for "personal reasons." He didn't explain the causes but said he had let RIM know a month earlier. The executive will stay in touch for the next six months to help transition over.
In an interview with Pocket-Lint, Research in Motion's UK Managing Director Steven Bates revealed the BlackBerry PlayBook will come to the European market in the second quarter of the year and maintained that it was still due for North America later this month. Exactly when during the spring it will arrive in Europe isn't known, but the UK will be one of the first countries to get it, perhaps as soon as April. Despite this, Bates hasn't hinted at what the device will cost, which remains unofficial.
Android has finally claimed a lead over other smartphone platforms in the US, Nielsen determined on Thursday. Between November and January, Android broke a three-way deadlock and claimed 29 percent of the US smartphone market, just ahead of the iPhone and BlackBerry tied at 27 percent. All of Microsoft's platforms combined were a distant third at 10 percent.
RIM could bring its jealously guarded BlackBerry Messenger service to Android and the iPhone, a potentially significant rumor claimed Thursday. The strategy would involve a "stripped down" version of BBM that would focus on text chat but omit and geolocation and media sharing to still give users an incentive to use a BlackBerry. Pricing was still in flux, BGR heard, but it could either be free or involve either a one-off or subscription fee to avoid creating too much of a strong incentive to leave BlackBerry hardware.
Research In Motion is reportedly set to launch an open beta for its BlackBerry Protect security service, which was first revealed under the name Shield, unnamed sources have told N4BB. The features are expected to enable users to remotely wipe data or change passwords, customize a "lost and found" screen, activate an alarm, or track the handset location.
A PlayBook Battery Assistant app found for the BlackBerry PlayBook ahead of its launch has hinted that it will have very long battery life. Comparing the battery life at 50 percent and at 20 percent, BerryReview heard the tablet would get roughly 17 hours of battery life in web browsing and a still healthy eight hours for video playback. Full 3D gaming could still last for six hours.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs used his iPad 2 event as a platform to criticize not just other mobile tablet makers but Microsoft as well. The original iPad's 15 million sales in 2010 not only gave it 90 percent of the market but saw it outsell every tablet to date, including Tablet PCs using Windows. Nine months was all it took to deliver "more than every tablet PC ever sold," he boasted.
Many competitors have been benchmarking their tablets against the original iPad, but the iPad 2 is now here and promises to change the game. Apple now has the speed and cameras to back itself up, but is it as good or better a buy? We've put the iPad 2 in a comparison with the BlackBerry PlayBook, HP TouchPad and Motorola Xoom to see how Apple holds up, especially on the matter of price.
RIM in statements and an interview late Tuesday confirmed that the BlackBerry PlayBook would support Java apps but was elusive on the prospects of supporting Android. It wouldn't flatly deny supporting apps from Google's OS but instead said company officials "haven't said anything about Android." The remarks from senior product manager Ryan Bidan to Engadget and others are unusual given the implications of supporting a rival platform's software.
The BlackBerry PlayBook received its first tentative release date through a leak early Wednesday. More than one source has put RIM's inaugural tablet in stores on April 10. BGR heard the device might be rushed and would purportedly have a patch waiting for it even with the OS itself finished on two weeks earlier, on March 31.
An open letter to RIM has given a look into potentially serious problems with the development process for the BlackBerry PlayBook. Jamie Murai noted that the costs of getting involved were far more expensive than with the iPad or Android. The PlayBook will not only cost $200 for most developers but only covers the first 10 apps; users also need to have a full copy of VMware Fusion or another ISO-friendly virtual machine to run the emulator, which could cost another $80.
RIM's suspected plans to run Android apps on BlackBerry were given support on Thursday by unusual findings from ShopSavvy. The mobile app developer said it recorded four instances between January and February of old BlackBerry phones, ranging from the original 8300 Curve through to its 8520 sequel and the 8600, running its Android app. While these could be faked, all of them came from Waterloo, or RIM's headquarter city.
RIM in remarks to its corporate customers said it was being unfairly singled out as part of Indian government scrutiny over access to e-mail. The Canadian firm argued that Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and others were using the standoff over government demands to snoop on e-mail as a way of drumming up market share. It implied that Android and iPhone were getting converts from those worried the BlackBerry might be unusable in the country.
RIM on Tuesday gave BlackBerry beta testers a new version of Twitter with an improved UI that brought it closer to its Android and iPhone peers. The app now has optional push notifications for @mentions to ease answering users back. Those with a touchscreen BlackBerry, like the Storm2 or Torch, now also have the same pull-to-refresh gesture as on Android and the iPhone to speed up checking for new updates.
RIM's BlackBerry Bold Touch has surfaced in the real world for the first time in a leak showing what's likely now its finished form. It's now known for certain to have a 2.8-inch, 640x480 touchscreen and to have a compass to go along with its other motion sensors. The final version spotted by N4BB is also now more upscale: it still has a metal frame from a prototype but now has a carbon fiber (or carbon-effect) back.
RIM's long in the making BlackBerry Storm3 has appeared in the flesh on Friday through a video (below). Along with confirming its combination of a keyboard-free design with a trackpad, the slip shows the extra screen area afforded by the 3.7-inch, 480x800 display. It clearly represents a Verizon prototype and has both the Verizon logo and on-phone theming along with a "live air activation" market indicating that it was ready to work on the CDMA and EVDO networks, hinted by a 3G badge in the upper right of the display.
A slate of leaks from a T-Mobile "See BlackBerry Different" event may have confirmed that it will have much of the 2011 BlackBerry roadmap on its schedule. The BlackBerry PlayBook would come to the carrier, but would unusually be the Wi-Fi only version. While not explained by PocketBerry's insider, it may be sold as a companion for those who already have a BlackBerry phone to tether with the tablet.
Verizon's iPhone 4 launch was slightly disappointing but still outsold AT&T's model, according to leaked sales data. The overall sales are reportedly a "little under" predictions but, during the first five days, consistently outsold AT&T at five different retail stores. The information supplied to BGR showed "very prominent" Apple stores cooling down to between 660 and almost 796 a day a few days later, but AT&T stores at these areas usually sold roughly 100 fewer phones, with the gap sometimes wider.
RIM used the opportunity of Mobile World Congress not just to unveil plans for HSPA+ and LTE versions of the BlackBerry PlayBook but to get its first genuine 3D game roster ready. EA will be first out of the gate with native ports of titles like Need for Speed: Undercover and Tetris. We had the chance to try them ourselves and have a quick round-up of performance and whether it's a better experience than on an iPad or a Galaxy Tab.
Research In Motion has confirmed that it has finalized an acquisition of Gist, a startup that specializes in contact management. The startup suggests the buyout represents a significant step in the company's plan to expand its web-based utilities that focus on compiling data from business contacts. RIM also welcomed the move, citing Gist's expertise in management of contact information.
