One such feature is RIM’s BlackBerry financial wallet, which is now available to the public on any BlackBerry device that is compatible with the latest BlackBerry OS 7. The wallet app is designed to speed up the checkout process for mobile purchases by keeping track of financial and banking information.

For example, the app can remember card numbers, billing information and delivery addresses, in addition to login information and reward schemes for retail websites. Since the invention of Internet commerce, companies have worked to develop and improve the process of electronic payment to be as seamless as possible: no cash, no coins, no filling out checks, no typing, and no storing credit card numbers.

“Mobile commerce is beyond the mobile wallet and there is a tremendous opportunity for brands to go beyond the buyer/supplier relationship,” O’Neill said. “Brands can now have a holistic view of the customer and serve them in an entirely new way, offering rich context based experiences.”

And RIM is not the first company to pick up on mobile commerce. Google also has a wallet app similar to the BlackBerry Wallet and other big name companies such as eBay, Apple, Visa and MasterCard are advancing their digital wallets in hopes of nabbing a share of the soon-to-be lucrative market. With these advancements, smartphone users—no matter what service provider—will be better able to handle spontaneous purchases and frequent online shopping.

It has been a touch few years for Blackberry who have failed to commercialize their devices and operating system beyond the business community and a few thousand anarchic UK rioters.

So with the terrible two seemingly gone from the top, how are Blackberry going to emerge now that they have had a little time to reflect on the future?

The answer to that seems to be that they will focus on their core corporate clients and turn their back for now on trying to muscle in on consumer orientated Apple and Android markets.

Reality has set in at RIM:

In the statement yesterday, the spokesperson also stated that the would be looking to partner with other technology providers in software and other areas that will allow RIM to move quicker and more cost effectively into areas that the are less experienced in.

CEO at RIM Thorsten Heins said:

“We can’t do everything ourselves, but we can do what we’re good at,”.

Build on strengths:

Heins said a turnaround required “substantial change.”

“We believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody’s darling and all things to all people…therefore, we plan to build on our strength.”

With a huge strategic review underway at research in motion, the new RIM will see a fair few stalwarts of the company who were there at the beginning leave in various ways.

Co-CEOs Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were replaced by Heins after they had recently lost the company tens of billions of dollars on their share value.

Along with the demise of the CEO’s David Yach the chief technology officer for software and Jim Rowan, chief operating officer for global operation are also leaving.

But business world demand iPhones and Android:

There is a major issue that RIM face right now and that is if there new version of the blackberry operating system, Blackberry 10 does not offer the option of running third part apps, then their new software could once again prove problematic as the shift is already underway and I would imagine that the longer this sea change occurs the harder it will be for corporations to justify yet another change back to a new device and O/S when so much is at stake during such a migration.

Apple alone sold some 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, which is 3x more than what RIM shipped in the last three quarters combined.

And with the Playbook flopping despite being hailed as a good quality device, you can see that the path out for RIM is going to be uphill and more than likely take a few wrong turns on the way.

So how long can RIM take to bring about the change that is needed?

Well RIM shares have seen a decline last year of quite a significant margin, but the ship does seem to have stabilized some what since then.

With Net loss at around $125 million for the fourth fiscal quarter, this is an obvious loss, but not as much as the nearly $1 billion hit ($934 million) they took a year ago.

And revenue has fallen short of expectations at some $4.2 billion from $5.6 billion. This has been reflected in the share price with RIM shares falling by 33 cents to $13.40 which see a 2.4% drop.

It has been relatively quiet from those guys at Taiwan’s HTC corp, and perhaps we have a reason why.

Both IBM and HTC are looking to team up and try to corner the business sector with Android devices.

Flying in the face of Apple and Blackberry devices who currently seem to be the favored operating systems and choice of device for enterprise clients, it would be a shame for Android as an O/S to miss out on this highly lucrative niche and it will be unwelcome news that the new CEO of research in motion will not be looking to hear right now.

Is Android safe enough?

It has to be said that the Android marketplace is a little tatty to be seriously given the kind of access that a big corporation would allow their staff with malware continually creeping in unchecked, but that is not to say that these two will not be bring out their own version of Android with more restricted access to applications in the market or totally bespoke ones as is suggested by the original article, where IBM have developed business applications that can work in Android and HTC provide the conduits in terms of devices.

With the iPad being such a runaway success with no real competitor to note, and both the business world and consumers opting for Apples offering over Android tablets by and large, you can see why IBM and HTC could potentially be a nice combination, with IBM’s access to a vast range of global business clients who already use their huge array of services and products and HTC being a very well liked device manufacturer, could it work?

Time will tell on that front but it must be worrying for the new CEO of RIM as they try to find a new tack and either get back into the enterprise market with their new operating system and a sweet super device or two, or focus more on other avenues that will take them away from the wrong path they have chosen over the last few years.

Bespoke applications key to success?

It looks like HTC will be bringing out both smartphones and tablets for business users, and will allow businesses to work with third party developers to create bespoke applications for the devices running on Android.

With Apple not allowing this kind of free reign with their operating system it could be an avenue that works for large corporations who truly do want full control of their technology used in the workplace.

But, could we see RIM make their new operating system a little more open in which case this market could well and truly start to crowd with more than two fighting for your attention!

Source : TechWeekEurope

We knew it was coming, as Research In Motion informed the world that the two CEO’s who have come under a fair amount of criticism of late will finally step down.

The WSJ broke the news, conveniently delivered at the height of a very important game of football on Sunday evening, though it will obviously make pretty big headlines Monday….is there a good time to deliver news like this?

Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, will step down to be replaced by the German born, Thorsten Heins who will be accompanied by financier Barbara Stymiest, the lady we tipped could be somewhere near CEO level when this move took place.

So what happens to the ex RIM CEO’s?

It appears that Lazaridis will become vice chairman leaving Balsillie still with a place on the board, with Barbara Stymiest as chairman.

This leaves the new CEO Thorsten Heins as man at the helm, and it has to be said that at 54 his background appears to be one of highly competent in this industry having worked for Siemens AG and various other wireless and consumer electronics companies over the last 27 years, his last tenure was as COO of RIM and Senior Vice President of their hand held unit. He studied in Hanover, Germany, his native country, and came over to Canada after being impressed by the methods of the two CEO’s when things were more rosy at RIM.

And let us not take anything away from the achievements of Lazaridis and Balsillie, who took a fledgeling tech company that started in 1984 from literally nothing to a multi billion pound shining light of Canada and North America in around 20 years.

All not over at RIM….yet:

The reality right now at RIM is that they actually have quite a healthy balance sheet and with control over all parts of their eco-system they should be able to implement sweeping changes relatively quickly. Changes that are needed to appeal to their core market and perhaps steal new customers if all were to work out well…so things are certainly not over at RIM.

Speaking of the current financial situation at RIM Heins states:

“We have a strong balance sheet with approximately $1.5 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt. We reported revenue of $5.2 billion in our last quarter, up 24 percent from the prior quarter, and a 35 percent year-to-year increase in the BlackBerry subscriber base, which is now over 75 million,”

Now I am not a financial analyst but with no debts of note and a huge $1.5 billion in cash in the coffers seems like room for movement at least for a while.

But adding to this it has to be said that RIM have lost two thirds of their stock value in the last 14 months so things are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

What happened to RIM?

Taking the last 10 years as the tipping point from a company that was moving forward and upwards, to a company that stopped innovating and got caught well and truly in the tech headlights with apples being thrown at it left right and centre.

Research In Motion had managed to conquer a niche, and still do command a huge vantage point in the enterprise market, built on technology that made governments and institutions of a certain size feel “safe”. This technology was related to secure emails and texts, and was important for communication hungry corporations to put their concerns with one firm who sated all those fears.

RIM fitted the bill and in many ways still does.

However, a couple of wacky companies from California were sniffing around mobile tech land with curiosity at what could now be done in this field and eventually the big Apple decided to take a bite of the mobile pie and create something that revolutionised the mobile device market with the arrival of the iPhone, the daddy of the modern smartphone, and with it bring in something even more powerful.

Applications.

Applications are RIM’s worst enemy:

I know many users of blackberry devices (they can not even be called smartphones) and they all say the same thing in 2012….

I wish “they” would replace it with an iPhone.

This implies that personally they would not be seen dead with a blackberry phone and it is only their companies who they work for that are either still stuck in a lengthy contract or still feel the need to stay secure with RIM’s technology, either way these numbers are falling and quickly.

And why? Because there are so many more things you can do with an iPhone, simple.

The world wants functionality, and Pandora’s box was well and truly opened, now we all know there is never any going back once this happens.

Double whammy is sods law:

As the saying goes that when you want a bus none come along and then two arrive at once, this seemingly was the case with Google and Apple (on a seemingly much more disastrous road), both bringing in new entrants to the blackberry market that would influence company IT departments choices on which device to furnish colleagues and staff.

Android was an open source iOS and wanted to make smartphone functionality available to the masses, so where the iPhone and iOS stood as a benevolent dictator, Google’s Android O/S was to be the free loving tart of the smartphone world.

Looking back at 2011 they also had the acutely embarrassing issue of days long blackberry outages, and the crazy plane antics of RIM employees making headlines.

Things needed to change.

With two very powerful offerings taking the globe by storm RIM and Blackberry have now basically started to look crap.

So how can RIM get back to where they perhaps deserve to be?

With the arrival of their new operating system called Blackberry 10 in a few months time, and a new playbook tablet that will run their new operating system, could it be that this will see RIM find a niche within the growing smartphone and tablet market?…Not just yet I imagine.

But, as Microsoft and Nokia have managed to get their focus back after being hit hard by Google, Samsung, HTC and Apple and have finally stepped back into the game with Windows Phone 7 and the Lumia Series, there is time left for RIM, but I suspect not much.

Single Superphone or Licensing could save RIM:

One of a few options open for Research In Motion is to make the new operating system much easier for other device manufacturers to develop on, so they could open source the operating system to a degree, or fully, this would then give them a chance to compete with Android and Apple and perhaps still focus on their core business of enterprise clients.

Having more devices with one operating system opens up the market to app developers who otherwise have enough on their plates with Android iterations and conflicts and iOS demands.

And in my mind what they need to make this new O/S work is applications.

It was Androids tough hill to climb and continues to be Windows task to win, and will certainly be RIM’s main challenge.

Indeed we have already covered the potential for licensing the new Blackberry 10 operating system out to the likes of Samsung and HTC and I for one see this as a serious proposition worthy of a few late night talks.

They could easily start with having a plan of updating their operating system as is the current focus with their current clients in mind, knowing that Samsung and HTC are all missing out on this lucrative enterprise market to some degree so will be more than happy to potentially partner with a company such as RIM if the plan was indeed to create a specific O/S for this market so everyone knew where they stood.

And let us not forget that the likes of Samsung And HTC sometimes worry about being too reliant on the big G for their operating system so diversification in this area may help alleviate concerns moving forward that they are not putting all their eggs in one basket.

Indeed we reported that the South Korean government were prepared to finance the creation of a brand new operating system for Samsung (and South Korea) to combat this potential issue.

Another way to compete with Apple and others is to make a Superphone of a smartphone that can actually compete with an iPhone and be a real contender to the Apple device, this option I would love to see but probably comes with more risks attached.

Now check out Thorsten Heins interview about his new role at RIM:

With the new operating system likely to show at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month it will indeed be one hell of a year for the new people at the helm of Canada’s once mighty RIM, what a job…;)

Do you think they can come back and conquer again, if so how, if not why?

We have recently touched on the problems that Research In Motion face and how they are trying to get shot of their first forays into the tablet arena with a mass of Blackberry Playbook offers.

The playbook range of tablets from RIM, that to all intents and purposes was built on great software, unfortunately lacked that added element of functionality over and above what the limited blackberry eco-system offered.

“The people, them want more!”

How to solve the RIM application problem?

In a report via Barrons, analyst Peter Misek claims that agreements are already in place to license Blackberry 10 to HTC and Samsung, and I personally believe this is absolutely critical for RIM to survive the next 24 months.

Only with the help of third party device manufacturers can RIM hope that their new operating system will benefit from the scaling of its user base which has dramatically dropped in recent months.

You are only as good as the Apps in your market:

Arguably, Apple do so well in the mobile space because their application market is far superior than the Android offering, (despite Android growing dramatically) I am talking in pretty much every sense, and Apple sell this to you when they advertise their products.

Take a look at this music track done using only a few iPads, no other mobile operating system has applications that come close to this and there are countless other examples of other application niches other than music where Apple shine through over their competitors.

But as you can see, Android have benefited from allowing their operating system to be open and this would seem to be a good way for RIM to move, no one wants 99% of 1% so perhaps this method would make more sense.

Unless of course they super niche themselves into the most robust but fully functional O/S going with a device to match, and perhaps aim purely for the corporate and government sectors, which may actually work…but, they need the other device manufacturers to be on board that is for sure.

It is therefore paramount that these other mobile tech companies are involved in helping propagate the use of more new Blackberry 10 enabled devices, otherwise their will be no chance that any developer will start to create applications for a market that is dead.

It really is very simple.

Without a market you get no apps, without any apps no one wants your mobile operating system, or devices that run on it.

Blackberry has also lost its cool a long time ago, and RIM need to create some sort of attraction to win those iPhone loving, Samsung S2 digging people back, who once would have given the blackberry operating system a real close look, and are currently turning away in their droves.

Uncool and unreliable:

One thing RIM does do well is to keep data more secure than other mobile operating systems, and for this it got lots of government and corporate attention.

As a result, RIM focused their products on delivering services to these people, but failed to realise that these same people were also getting iPhones for their personal use and then started to look at the difference in overall design, user interface and functionality and ask pretty deep questions.

This was OK though, as it was still much “safer” to use your blackberry after all.

However the unfortunate state of play where RIM managed to have a total black out for days, was the cause of so much headache and concern, that this one last glimmer of hope has perhaps faded and people are now much more open to alternatives, as Governments and corporations now look at Android and others.

With the overall problems this last year their core business users, ever fearful over security concerns are now asking the question;

“Is this fear over security worth the risk of losing days of no communication. and is the functionality on offer enough to allow our organisations to utilise smoniel technology to its maximum capacity?”

Single-Device superphone strategy:

Like Apple before them, could RIM reinvent themselves with a brand new superphone and fantastic O/S, and save their company with a device that will genuinely be easy to understand the benefits of, work well for users who are used to Android and iOS phones, and also compete with them in terms of power and functionality?

Yes the Canadian firm are in troubled waters, but they CAN be saved.

So will their saviour come in the form of banking chief Barbara Symiest, or will the two CEO’s continue their current reign?

And how do you think RIM can claw back its user base and instil confidence that they have the operating system of choice, devices to match, and are worth taking another look at?

Research in motion released the Blackberry Playbook tablet to UK audiences in June last year, and we have already reported on how the Playbook price cut in the US aimed to get rid of their old stock.

UK buyers see RIM Playbook price reduction also:

Now UK consumers can benefit from RIM’s decision to “get rid”, as they have seemingly reduced the unit price for retailers in the UK, as most we have looked into are selling the models at varying prices from:

[arrowlist]

• £169,99 for the 16GB playbook
• £199,99 for the 32GB playbook
• £329,99 for the 64GB playbook

[/arrowlist]

UK buyers will have sliding price scale it seems:

As RIM do not sell their playbook tablets via their online store in the UK, and only go through high street and online retailers. It is interesting to see that the blanket price that US buyers received for their playbook tablets has not been passed onto UK consumers.

I am personally unsure if this is UK retailers and networks cashing in on what you would normally expect the price range to be, or just a reflection of the relationship that UK businesses have with the Canadian firm.

In the US, the playbooks are ALL selling for $299, for the 16GB tablet, right up to the 64GB model.

So what do you think of this deal, would you still like to get onto the Blackberry bandwagon when you have a choice of iOS or Android as an alternative to the RIM operating system.

There is no doubt that the price looks attractive, but with Amazon due to release their Kindle Fire in the UK some time soon, is it really all that attractive when there are so many options out there with perhaps better eco-systems.

In a move seen by many to signal a multitude of serious problems at the Canadian research in motion corporation, RIM have slashed the price of their Playbooks to a measly $299 in a bid to get rid of the stock.

And in what appears to be a pretty strange move, they are all set at that price, making me wonder if RIM have lost the plot completely, as I would not be going for the 16GB device when it is the same price as the 64GB, or maybe this is a retailers trick to get the press attention and get people parting with their cash in order to secure the bigger alternative at the price, either way the 64GB models are going to be gone pretty quick I imagine.

So with the new release of the Playbook 2.0 coming next month we wonder if they will have time to shed this unsightly skin that has been put over the first Playbook, an unlucky one, as essentially the device is pretty good by all accounts, it just suffers from being related to the blackberry family and all the issues that this currently has as an operating system.

Discounted Playbooks not on offer in the UK:

Noticeably this offer is not available for buyers of the Playbook in the UK.

With demand for Playbooks slowing month on month, it will be interesting to see if the wholesale clearance of their old stock will help clear the path for greater demand for the new model considering the associated bad press that a good old car boot sale of your wares brings in tech-land.

Would you be interested in a Playbook for $299 or would you rather wait for the arrival of the iPad 3 or indeed the new Playbook 2.0 next month?

As always please pen down your comments below, we always love to hear your views.

There is no excuse whatsoever for robbing a perfectly innocent person of his mobile phone, but of all the people to mug, one of the last people you would hope to pick would be a friend of the ruling class.

Such was the bad luck and stupidity of this particular scumbag.

Though this unfortunate mugging seems to be less about the fact that the “family” will hung, draw and quarter you for messing with their pals, and more to do with the fact that Prince Harry takes no s***, and was apparently on the hunt for his friend in the wee hours of the morning after being engaged in conversation with Mr van Straubenzee when he got mugged for his Blackberry phone.

As a result of this high profile man hunt (less for the man being hunted and more for the hunter), Harry now appears to be one of the first high profile royals to actually walk into a police station like an everyday guy and report a crime, after he was unsuccessful in finding his mugged friend.

A police source is quoted saying:

Prince Harry came into the station to give a statement. It was a separate statement from the one given by his friend who was mugged.’

It appears that a man was arrested earlier in the month (1st Dec) and has been released on bail to attend a court hearing in the new year.

Battersea is seen as good target for wealthy residents:

With South London being gentrified in many areas over the last 15 or so years, the area is also home to some of London’s toughest and most deprived estates, this close relationship of haves and have not’s has lead to a series of high profile muggings in the last few years. Only this year in February, a former aide to the Queen Mother, Niall Hall, was kidnapped after having his car carjacked by a gang who then stripped him naked and ran knives along his body, and only last month Richard Ward, 37, died from head injuries after being attacked by a gang, in an apparently unprovoked incident, once again highlighting the lack of respect many young people have for human life in Britain’s inner cities.

Or they will do in the next few hours at least!

Thanks to an interesting set of data provided by mobile application search specialist MobileWalla, we can see that as of today the mobile application market for all camps is pretty much at the 1 million mark.

Apple still lead App market in terms of numbers:

The iOS platform still has the largest share of apps in their marketplace almost by a factor of 2 to all the other combined though it is obvious that currently the only real contender in terms of volume of available applications is the Android platform.

We have covered an article about how the Windows App Marketplace is growing, but it can be seen that the current size is almost insignificant compared to the combined total of Apple iOS and Android apps.

A promotional event in Jakarta last month, caused such a huge amount of people to turn up, that the event turned into mayhem after a stampede occurred.

The former CEO of Research in Motion’s Indonesia arm Andrew Cobham will be charged after the incident at the store, where many people passed out as the rush to get a bargain Blackberry was not managed well.

A Reuters report on the event shows that the former RIM CEO was responsible for the promotional event and will face negligence charges.

This comes about after two other RIM employees were handcuffed to a plane and forced to make an Air Canada pilot make an emergency landing after getting so drunk on a scheduled trip to China.

Store event saw 50% discount for 1000 lucky winners:

Police investigator Budi Irawan said:

“The suspect has been banned from travelling overseas. He must go through the legal process here,”

This means that Cobham, if found guilty, could get a maximum of nine months in jail in Indonesia

Indonesia is a key growth market for RIM with some 2 million active users and steady demand. This comes about as the middle classes in the country expand and disposal income increases.

RIM (research in motion) are looking to shine another bright new light on affairs in Blackberry land after the fiasco of recent saw Blackberry users go without much of their services as a total system failure caused widespread disruption to Blackberry users worldwide.

This new PR stunt sees an event in Dubai bringing together the Porsche design team and Blackberry to unveil a new collaborative smartphone termed the “Knight 9980” if rumours are to be believed.

Porsche to Bayberry’s rescue:

With RIM trying to impress and educate the much more cautious Middle Eastern areas over RIM’s “closed” messaging system, call me a cynic but using Porsche as a “design guru” may seem like the perfect way to win over a region obsessed with horses, and fast cars.

This may not seem like such a bad idea now they also have to prove to a new market that the “closed” system is also very breakable.

So what are the plans:

Rumours have emerged back in September that the “Knight 9980″ will be a cool looking Blackberry with much cleaner lines and a flatter keyboard, it all looks very snazzy.

News just in via TechCrunch confirms that the invitation only event will take place next Thursday in Dubai and will see the unveiling of this more than likely ostentatious bit of gadgetry.

To all the bling loving, racing aficionados of machine and beast out in the Middle East I say: “Your money or your Porsche…”

Groan….;)

In an earlier article we wrote about RIM/Blackberry’s failings in keeping it’s customers happy with the ongoing issues around lack of service. We then touched upon what they would do to compensate their loyal customers in the aftermath, would it be a lump sum, offers, discounts, a free holiday to the moon?

But no, in a rather tight and misery decision, they have decided everyone wants free applications. A much easier to deliver, almost no cost solution to looking like you give a s*** from a company who have now started to firmly dig a nice wide hole to lay in.

Good offerings?

Well if you were in the market for apps, I suppose that having access to over $100 of premium applications such as games, hands-free apps, and other mobile tools would come as a nice gesture, but what if you do not want them, or have already bought what you need?

The offer will last for the remainder of 2011 for current blackberry users, and will come as a welcome relief to Blackberry developers who are probably going to keep this nice bit of extra cash for the transition to Apple or Android where things may feel a little more stable in light of the last years news on finances and the future of RIM in general.

Cause of issue:

Basically RIM’s network failed on pretty much all continents, Middle East, Western Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America.

The problem was apparently a “switch” used at a Slough data facility in the UK that had the first issues, this allowed among other things a huge backlog of emails to back up on the servers and eventually cause the knock on effect that brought down the system globally for around three days.

RIM’s Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis (yes there is two of them) said:

“We are grateful to our loyal Blackberry customers for their patience. We have apologized to our customers and we will work tirelessly to restore their confidence. We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

RIM/Blackberry preferred by businesses due to extra security?

RIM still claim that they have a better system overall when it comes to security, the fact that governments and big business still (did) prefer their phones is the only saving grace for a manufacturer who now has huge competition in the marketplace bringing out more advanced phones and operating systems by the month.

With a massive question over reliability over there heads, something that big business and government will not accept in any way when it means lost business and wasted time, how long can RIM last when so many will be looking to move providers on upgrade if not well before?

Professor Ian Lee from Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, warned that business users could flee Blackberry if they are seen as unreliable:

“These meltdowns are just the worst thing you can do in the corporate world because businessmen expect reliability. They don’t want excuses. Their competitive strength has been in the corporate market, or enterprise market, and such outages are causing these customers to take a second look at competitors.”

Two heads better than one?

Yes, times look tough for the folks at RIM, it will be interesting to see if two heads do prove better than one at the top, or a leaner more focused approach to leadership is more beneficial…now I wonder who they could have learned from in those stakes?

4 days of outage globally have seen RIM lose ground on Apple and other rivals as one of the worst communication problems of the modern age just went on and on and on.

With tens of millions of users suffering at the hands of a system wide meltdown on all five continents, Blackberry users were left without messaging, browsing and email services, an absolute disaster for business people and for research in motion in general.

2 CEO’s make joint apology:

RIM Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis made a rare dual appearance at a news conference on Thursday where they were attempting to utilise a global media channel to patch up the issues that had created such a nightmare scenario for the company.

With profit warnings sending shares tumbling for most of the year, this issue has only compounded an otherwise pretty dire year anyway for the company.

Compensation sought from Blackberry customers:

It looks like Blackberry will have to compensate to some degree as so many people have been affected it would be a PR disaster if they were seen to not shoulder any of the issues with their own money, there is no doubt this problem has caused businesses lossed revenue.
But the main concern that RIM and blackberry now face is related to their reputation, as Apples new (unremarkable update has shown, when you are delivering quality that is reliable people will flock back and in Apples case pre-order in their droves.

I sense that anyone now looking to renew with a Blackberry will be looking elsewhere to Apple and Android devices.

Mike Lazaridis said in opening the conference call.

“I want to apologize to all the BlackBerry customers we’ve let down, our inability to quickly fix this has been frustrating.”

Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland said.

“We still believe that most of RIM’s value is in the network and messaging business and this could crimp that value,”

With RIM now in control of the blackberry service in entirety there have been calls for the CEO’s to look much closer at how they dealt with the growing unease and dissatisfaction among users of their devices.

PR disaster made worse:

It has been mentioned by many professionals in the industry that the way RIM has not acknowledge issues or delivered timely apologies has been a PR crisis made worse.

Allan Bonner, a PR crisis management consultant in Toronto, went on to say:

“I think a statement of empathy that wouldn’t cost anybody anything could have been made within hours,”

Blackberry Compensation:

With Spain’s Telefonica (which own o2 in the UK) stating that they would compensate customers for the outage, analysts expect these companies to recoup costs directly from RIM. It is however still currently unclear if they will be issuing an agreed compensation package as a matter of course.

The Fallout:

Time will tell just how badly this issue is going to affect the ailing Canadian company, the problem which is believed to have been caused by a problematic switch at a slough data center, in England caused the backup system to fail and lead onto other issues that slowly went global.

With RIM’s overall share value dipping more than 50 percent this year after a series of poor product launches and profits warnings, the issue that has gone global could not have come at a worse time a sharp contrast to a company that could do very little wrong a few years ago.

The new release from Samsung is an intriguing offering that is perhaps a category defining new mobile device, here is why:

Samsung Galaxy Note Review:

With Samsung emerging as an industry leading manufacturer of mobile devices, albeit with a string of law suits related to the technology that is contained within them. It has to be handed to the South Korean electronics powerhouse that they are still pushing the boundaries with devices they release competing hard in their own existing categories defined by the likes of Apple’s iPhone and iPad in the case of the Samsung S2 and Galaxy tablet or in the case of the new Samsung Galaxy Note, perhaps even defining a new category.

The new smartphone/tablet is touting itself as a mid-sized tablet with smartphone capabilities and is pitched as a pen and paper replacement. Coming with a pressure sensitive “S-Pen” attachment the device allows users to write in a more traditional manner, perhaps an improvement on their “Swype” technology which has totally replaced my method of writing texts, articles, etc on my Samsung S2. The new “S-pen” is able to write, draw and edit/annotate a multitude of applications including photos. So could this kind of device prove to be a kind of “Wacom tablet” replacement for designers if Adobe were ever to enter the app market properly and release a full blown Photoshop application and creative suite? While it may be some time that demand and technology are the right fit for software houses such as Adobe to enter fully just yet I personally expect tablets to become the go to choice for creatives in the not too distant future, fully replacing a traditional PC for functionality, portability and power. The new Samsung Galaxy Note is a device which shows what can be done with some creative ideas and a little forethought and usability.

While the stylus pen option has been done before (as a costly option) for the HTC flyer, this is the first time that a device has been given a pen as a default option.

Galaxy Note built on Android:

With the Note being built on the somewhat controversial Android O/S, it’s screen dimension is set at 5.3in, this is smaller than they Flyer, and weighs in at 178g. A larger version of this model will be arriving later, simply called the Galaxy tab 7.7, with you guessed it, a 7.7 inch screen.

The note will feature a 8mp camera on the back and a 2mp camera on the front, with LTE and HSPA+ flavours for 3G connectivity.

Head of account for Samsung Europe, Andrew Coughlin says this about the stylus pen offering:

“Any screen can be captured and annotated with detailed commentary in your own handwriting,”

Perfect tablet/smartphone for students?

Now I am not sure how large the writers market is but the student market must be pretty huge so perhaps this has its place as a paper and pen replacement for students as well as general writers and people who like to jot stuff down (myself included).

With the release of the developers SDK for third party development opportunity via the pen and stylus, it will surely only be a matter of time before various cool and hopefully useful applications enter the market to take advantage of a fairly unique method of interacting with your tablet.

Super AMOLED Screen:

The larger version of the Galaxy note we mentioned above, coming in with a 7.7 inch screen will feature the Super AMOLED screen that is present in the Samsung S2 smartphone. This allows for wide viewing angles, they will both feature a 1.4Ghz dual core processor, so will have 400Mhz more processing power than the iPad 2.

It will be pitched as a tablet and smartphone replacement by Samsung, though I am unsure as it is perhaps a bit too large for pockets and a bit too small for serious functionality, with the 7.7 inch being perfect for screen size for functionlaity but definitely too big for the pocket.

Bada O/S – Samsung’s iOS and Android O/S competitor:

With the South Korean government keen to foster a working partnership with LG and Samsung to develop a mobile device operating system independent of the likes of Google’s Android O/S which has come into serious question legally in recent months, Samsung have also released their new Wave 3 handset running their own Bada operating system. Samsung also made a point of stating that they intend the O/S to be a fully blown competitor to smartphone and mobile specific operating systems such as Apples iOS, Android and the Blackberry O/S.

Are Tablet/Smartphone hybrids the future?

So what are your thoughts on the space saving mini tablets and the function packing smartphones that a hybrid such as the Samsung Note offers, is it a little bit to betwixt and between to be really called either or does it sit in a niche that allows a range of users something functional and neat?

Blackberry’s message system BBM is famous for being a closed messaging service meaning that services such as the police can not easily intercept the data that is transferred between private group chats.

This has proven popular for business users who want to make sure sensitive information is kept as safe as possible in the airwaves, this has however meant that Blackberry devices have become popular with criminals and it now would appear rioters in London.

Blackberry have issued a statement on their twitter account stating:

“We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can”

Blackberry have become very popular in the UK teen market with 37 percent of UK teenagers citing the Blackberry as their smartphone of choice. This is mainly down to the free and confidential BBM message service which replaces the usual SMS text messaging service.

Blackberry’s are the smartphone of choice for “Yoof” of Britain:

Blackberry’s BBM group messaging service is perfect for covert communication, it is a totally encrypted means of sharing text like messages with people who have access to your own personal pin, this keeps communication totally closed.

Blackberry could be accused of targeting the “urban youth” element of society, their phones are a little cheaper than more sophisticated smartphones, and they have even been the recent sponsors of a ‘secret gig’ in Shoreditch Town Hall with huge names from the UK rap scene taking the stage.

Indeed Mark Duggan the young man shot dead who is now perhaps unfairly linked to the appalling riots was last known to be using a Blackberry phone texting his girlfriend that:

“The Feds are following me.”

Jonathan Akwue – one of the first people to raise the BBM connection – points out:

BBM is fast, free and private. It’s also created a ‘shadow social network‘ which is invisible to Police snooping.

Will Blackberry bow down to police and legal requests to decode BBM messages from suspect rioters?

Blackberry has a somewhat solid stance at defending its right to keep the encrypted data sent by its users to itself, I am unsure just what would be needed in order to force Blackberry to actually go against one of its selling points and allow the police access to users confidential and encrypted BBM messages.

Social networks blamed for riots:

Facebook and Twitter are being blamed for escalating the riots in London and Birmingham, this is totally pointless blame, they are merely a means of communication and people have used any form of communication at hand, riots are a part of Britain’s fabric though the recent unrest does seem to have a much more sinister undertone in the totally random nature.

Have you always wanted to know if your home state was a little bit more Android biased than iOS?
In the same way that your generally a Republican or Democrat, a really nice graphic has emerged from JumpTap showing the predominance of the main smartphone operating systems state by state, with a neutral badge given to states that are too close to call.

US smartphone operating system statistics?

What the map does show is that users in the South and West tend to be Android biased whereas the North East/New England and Mid Western areas tend to favour iOS.

What the data reflects:

The data is not based on market share or shipments but is based on Jumptaps data recorded through its extensive advertising network hitting 83 million users, so its fair to say its probably pretty accurate.

Interestingly they included the over indexed blackberry device that is most popular in New York over Android or iOS. Perhaps business users consume more data? and with NYC’s huge population and Blackberry initially being marketed as being the business persons smartphone, could it be tha this will soon become Android or iOS territory as both are pushing hard on RIM’s operating system?

Does this map/graphic make sense to you, or do you feel your state is wrongly singled out with an incorrect smartphone bias on actual handsets?