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The Blackberry Storm2 9550 is official, yet unofficial in that RIM marketing hasn’t put up a press release on their site yet. At least we now have access to the full specs for the BlackBerry Storm2 and while we can always complain about memory, it has some crucial features such as WiFi.
Click through for the full specs of the BlackBerry Storm2 9550
The BlackBerry Storm2 9550 still does not have any specific availability, but the it’s interesting to see the current prices of the Storm 9530.
Some of the prices include:
Bell: $299 on a 3 year contract
Amazon: $0.01 on a new service plan
Let’s Talk: Free on a new service plan
Verizon: $49.99 on a new service plan and includes a Buy One Get One Free promotion.
WireFly: Free on a new service plan
MTS: $249.99 on a 3 year contract
TELUS: $99.99 on a 3 year contract
These prices are reflective of carriers and vendors trying to offload their original Storm stock but still some carriers have some relatively high prices. Is anyone seriously still paying $249.99 on a three year contract for a year old device? It just goes to show that carriers are dropping the ball when it comes to offering good deals on devices. When the Storm2 launches, it will probably be in your best interests to skip the carrier and find an online vendor who will give you a better deal.
[Hat tip James L.]
RIM is for many both a great smartphone manufacturer and a source of patriotism. It’s a leader in the ITC (Information and Communications Technology) sector and their executives, especially Jim Balsillie, are quick to point out that it’s a Canadian firm.
This brief description may remind you of another Canadian firm: Nortel. Nortel was also a source of Canadian pride as a prominent, high-technology firm based in Canada.
Both companies, due to their size and influence, have a notable impact on the Toronto Stock Exchange. While RIM occupies about 3% of the TSX, Nortel once accounted for more than one-third of the main TSX index.
Although there are a few similarities in the two companies, they are completely different and it’s safe to say that RIM will not suffer the same fate as Nortel.
Management at Nortel was infamous for receiving millions in incentives that promoted unethical business practices. In 2004, several of its top executives – including former CEO Frank Dunn – were accused of cooking the books to inflate profit numbers, resulting in millions of dollars of bonuses to these individuals. Last year, criminal charges were laid against Dunn and others.
Jim Balsillie got in trouble with the the OSC which alleged the executives backdated and repriced stock options using dates on which the market price of RIM’s shares was relatively low. Handing out options at the lower prices had the effect of improperly enriching the recipients and, the OSC alleged, could have deprived RIM of about C$66 million.
While both companies seem to be involved in some shady practices, they can’t really be compared because they are on completely different scales. The result of the Nortel scandal resulted in billions in losses for shareholders. The result of the RIM and OSC case was that Balsillie paid a penalty of C$5 million ($4.1 million), while Co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis paid a C$1.5 million penalty. The two also paid investigation costs to the regulator.
According to Kevin Restivo, a communications technology analyst at IDC Canada, “RIM and Nortel are very different companies,” he said. “Other than the fact that they’re both based in Canada and both publicly traded companies in the ICT sector … the companies’ histories and similarities separate pretty quickly.”
Some point to competition in the telecom industry, coupled with the crippling accounting scandal, resulted in Nortel’s eventual demise. The telecom industry began to see a large number of mergers such as Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks, which left Nortel at a disadvantage. With the accounting scandal at hand, the company was in no condition to recover and eventually had to be protected from bankruptcy and sold off.
It’s competition that is also the popular topic when discussing the future of RIM. The difference is that competition will actually make RIM stronger in the end. Sure, market share in North America is fluctuating given sales of the iPhone, but can anyone prove that Apple sales have a negative impact on RIM’s growth? The App Store led an evolution in the market that RIM is still generating considerable profits from, having followed the trend with App World. Competition is also increasing the overall number of smartphone users, and this trend is helping to increase sales for RIM. Other smartphone manufacturers may represent competition, but for some reason the Palm Pre is often cited. Remember, Palm only sold 810,000 units last quarter compared to 8.9 million devices for RIM.
So while these two companies represent the talent that Canada possesses in the ICT world, they will have two very different fates.
[Via]
RIM have officially announced its BlackBerry Widget Software Development Kit (SDK), allowing developers to build apps using common web technologies. Included with the SDK is access to BlackBerry Widget APIs and other tools to easily create applications that can be distributed via BlackBerry App World or a BES.
While this SDK will allow developers to easily create web applications, one has to wonder if the apps that will be created will be of the same caliber that you currently see on App World. Apple’s App Store is plagued with what are called “bulk apps,” which are basically templated web apps that congest the market and don’t provide much added value.
Abobe and RIM have partnered to bring Flash support to the BlackBerry Platform. Flash support for BlackBerry is regarded as one of the key factors that separates the mobile and the desktop browsing experience. Some very popular flash-based web entertainment portals like MySpace Music, desktop-grade-YouTube, and Flash games will have the opportunity to go mobile in the near future.
The mobile race to integrate these technologies is on: Symbian and the Android OSes are both aiming for early 2010 while Windows Mobile and Palm’s Web OS are racing to deploy this by the end of this year. It’s being speculated that RIM will have a Flash 10.1 solution by summer 2010, if not sooner.
From the press release:
RIM is joining the Open Screen Project, a broad initiative dedicated to enabling standalone applications and richer Web browsing across mobile phones, televisions, desktops and other consumer electronic devices through the Adobe Flash Platform. The collaboration is expected to bring the full Flash Player browser runtime to BlackBerry smartphones.
“As an industry leader for innovative smartphones and wireless solutions, RIM delivers superior mobile user experiences to customers around the world,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Flash Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “It’s a natural fit for both companies to work together to bring Flash technology based video and web content to BlackBerry smartphone users.”
“As part of the Open Screen Project, RIM will be working with Adobe to deliver a great Flash technology experience on BlackBerry smartphones and to enable users to enjoy the exciting content and services that Flash technology developers and content creators are bringing to the Web,” said Alan Brenner, SVP at Research In Motion.
Led by Adobe, the Open Screen Project includes close to 50 industry leaders working together to provide a consistent runtime environment and user experience across mobile phones, desktops, and other consumer electronics devices. The initiative addresses the challenges of web browsing on a broad range of devices, and removes the barriers to publishing content and applications seamlessly across screens.
Check out the full press release at RIM’s BlackBerry Newsroom
RIM is working on an in-house Twitter client for BlackBerry, expected to be released mid-November. First party apps have the advantage of total integration with the OS. This upcoming twitter client sounds very well crafted with push delivery of Tweets and notifications showing unread tweets on the app’s home screen icon.
Expect all the standard twitter client features of friends timeline, viewing profiles, viewing photos, manage/view who you follow, direct messages, and replies. Some of the advanced functions include the ability to tweet photos from your camera or from your memory card.
Comments? Will you be downloading the RIM built twitter app or will you be sticking with your favorite third party Twitter client?
RIM and TiVo have launched a free application, that lets TiVo customers who are BlackBerry users, interact with their programming guides and recordings.
The app, currently available on App World, will let you browse shows by category, view the most popular shows or daily picks and see the programming details, such as title, description, runtime, and airdate and time. Additionally, the BlackBerry device can easily be used to set a TiVo to record shows.
RIM’s 2nd quarter fiscal 2010 financial results conference call began at the close of the markets, at 5pm, Thursday, September 24th, 2009.
Before we begin a breakdown of RIM’s 2nd quarter fiscal 2010 financial results, there are a few BlackBerry Cool articles worth reading:
Rearch in Motion’s 1st Quarter Fiscal 2010 conference call
Lessons for App World – Keep your Market Open For Developers
App Store Numbers are Deceptive – Beware of Bulk Apps RIM
Improving the App World Experience
RIM vs Carriers – Balsillie and Lazaridis Strategies to Push App World
The reason these links are important is because RIM talked a lot about how BlackBerry is becoming “mainstream.” This is because RIM is seeing a tremendous growth in the consumer market. It’s not that the enterprise market is shrinking, but that the consumer market growth is so large, it is basically overwhelming the enterprise market.
As per usual, Jim Balsillie took the call and updated investors on the 2nd quarter for the fiscal year ending 2010. Revenue was very strong at 3.5 billion, up 37% from last year.
This quarter saw 2 new smartphones introduced to the market, the BlackBerry Tour 9630 and the BlackBerry Curve 8520. While the Tour was an important addition to the BlackBerry lineup, it was not the focal point of the conference call. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 was the center of attention during this quarter’s report.
Net subscribers for the 2nd quarter were at the lower end due to the nature of the devices released. The Tour in particular is an upgrade device and not necessarily a device that brings new subscribers. The 8520, on the other hand, is the ultimate device for bringing in new BlackBerry subscribers. The device appeals to consumers as well as international users, due to the low price point. BIS users have steadily increased, and RIM’s customer base is seeing over 80% come from non-enterprise subscribers.
This doesn’t mean that RIM has forgotten about enterprise users. Keep in mind that enterprise is what provides RIM with a competitive advantage and while consumer may become a larger share of revenue, enterprise is still crucial to the brand. The BlackBerry MVS system as well as some upcoming enterprise features will help stimulate a steady growth in enterprise users.
One of the more interesting discussion points surround this conference call was the focus on the international component of RIM’s business. About 1/3 of RIM’s new subscribers were located outside of North America. With 9.2 million devices expected to ship in the 3rd quarter, this will likely come from North America as these devices are in the higher end of the price and feature spectrum. On the other hand, this figure of 9.2 million will become significantly increased in future quarters when RIM launches more low end devices that appeal to an international market.
ASP, or average sale price, is another focus of RIM’s conference call. Many of the investors who called in with questions wanted to know more about this. RIM continues to lower the ASP while marketing campaigns and great partnerships with carriers further lowers the cost of owning a BlackBerry. Jim Balsillie hinted towards some upcoming “integrated marketing campaigns” which sounds interesting, but is too vague to comment on.
As previously mentioned, the Curve 8520 was the focal point of this conference call. The Curve 8520 for GSM networks is the first with the touchpad and is the first BlackBerry to offer the standard BlackBerry services at a pricing point that is more “international.” In Europe and Latin America, the 8520 has seen incredible sales because its pricing point makes it competitive in local markets. Latin America has seen double digit growth!
The 8520 exposes the new face of RIM which is an international company. More so than any other quarter or year, RIM is seeing sales of BlackBerry devices all over the world. Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Venezuela and Mexico, are all purchasing the 8520, the affordable BlackBerry.
Not only is the 8520 exposing an international side of RIM, but it also brings to light the fact that RIM is becoming increasingly a consumer smartphone manufacturer. As the smarpthone industry progresses, we’re seeing the line blur between enterprise and consumer, and a device that has been traditionally meant for business users, is now a device for the average user.
Back to School promotions were very effective due to this shift. Back to School during this fiscal quarter have been the most successful yet. In France, 3 carriers had a special rate plan and a lower pricing point for the 8520, making it more attractive for a larger market. Students are a real opportunity within the consumer market, and RIM is reaping the rewards of this consumer/enterprise split.
We can all agree that a smartphone is nothing without a solid developer community. RIM knows this and has invested heavily in their developer community. It seems RIM believes web application development is the future of smartphone applications, and the developer community is being given tools and resources to help further this type of development. According to Jim, web application development brings together the best of Java and the best web development.
In terms of popular applications, social media is on top. BlackBerry users have downloaded over 20 million social network type applications including MySpace and Facebook. Second in line came radio applications such as Slacker and Pandora, which have seen over 7 million downloads.
The news about the Torch Mobile acquisition was minimal, and RIM only mentioned that the acquisition would be beneficial for developers and provide a platform that was on par with the market. Something that has not been mentioned, is that RIM has bought into the development of Webkit. By purchasing Torch Mobile, RIM now owns developers who are part of the core contributors to the open source technology that drives much of the smartphone web browsing technology. If they wanted to, RIM could leverage these contributors to insert code into the open source platform that was beneficial to the BlackBerry platform, but not necessarily to the other smarpthones. This is purely conjecture on the part of BlackBerryCool.com and was not part of the conference call.
We’ll bring you more on the questions posed after the RIM 2nd quarter fiscal 2010 conference call soon. Feel free to comment your thoughts and opinions about RIM’s situation in the 2nd quarter, and we’ll discuss.
The new BlackBerry Alliance Program has launched, eight years after the first iteration of the program. The newest addition to the Alliance Program is a paid tiered member system with a rewards program to encourage participation. The new point system offers members points in exchange for being active in the program and members are then rewarded with greater access to RIM tools and resources.
According to RIM, the new program offers your organization:
One of the interesting points of this program is how points are awarded. It seems that the program is geared towards larger organizations as a company can easily accrue a large number of points for simply having a larger organization upon registration. It will be interesting to see how many Alliance Members actually attain the point goals set by the program and how difficult it will be for members to increase the number of points they are earning relative to previous quarters.
While RIM has launched the new BlackBerry Alliance Program, it seems as though it isn’t yet official. The site is rumored to be located at BlackBerryAlliance.com but this URL still redirects to partners.blackberry.com/web/guest. This is reminiscent of the sort of domain restructuring that went on before Inside BlackBerry launched.
MyBlackBerry has been live for some time now and it is part of a bigger social media push at RIM. The company is leveraging Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs, to send out their message.
InsideBlackBerry sat down with MyBlackBerry’s Community Manager Becky Young, to talk about the project and social media at RIM in general.
It’s interesting to see a company such as RIM get into social media as RIM has been known to be a very traditional and conservative company. As times change, and RIM is seeing a great consumer base, inevitably the culture at the company changes with it.
According to Becky, RIM got into MyBlackBerry from “mostly seeing web 2.0 and using web 2.0 tools in our everyday lives outside of RIM. With MyBlackBerry we wanted to do two things: create a place that is all about YOU and YOUR BlackBerry smartphone (not everyman’s BlackBerry smartphone – but yours) and connect this place to the largest BlackBerry smartphone community in the world.”
MyBlackBerry does have a lot of potential but it would be nice to see the site offer something that we can’t get elsewhere. The competitive advantage with RIM will obviously be scope, in that they have the power to bring users in from the entire BlackBerry network, almost effortlessly. Once this community has grown, the question is what will they do with it?
To have your say, join the Feature Request thread on MyBlackBerry and let them know what you want to see.
For more about MyBlackBerry from Community Manager Becky Young, see Inside BlackBerry.
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