Next-generation software for BlackBerry’s smartphones is “ready to compete”, Research In Motion’s new chief executive, Thorsten Heins, told more than 2,000 technical developers on Tuesday, expressing confidence in RIM’s long-term future.

The Canadian company has lost market share and market value after being comprehensively outplayed by technology giants Apple, Google and Samsung. But it is betting that yet-to-be-released products powered by its new QNX operating system will improve its image after a year of product delays, the botched launch of its PlayBook tablet and a shareholder revolt.

“The smartphone market is still young, and there are huge opportunities for us, both with consumers and business,” Heins said.

In his first formal speech since he became CEO on January 23 after RIM’s former co-chiefs bowed to investor pressure and resigned, Heins told a packed Amsterdam conference of BlackBerry developers that he would listen to them, that RIM would continue to innovate, and that the new QNX-based operating system would kick off its next technology growth curve.

He also said he was thrilled to take the reins at RIM and believed the new technology used in BlackBerry 10 devices, which are promised for later this year, will set the standard for a “new user paradigm” for use in the home, cars, tablets and in smartphones.

The Canadian firm was holding its first European developers meeting, with 2,000 attendees focused on making applications for the latest and future BlackBerry smartphones and the PlayBook tablet, which RIM had hoped would compete with Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab models.

“It’s taking a little while for BlackBerry to fully transition to the new QNX-based operating system, but once it is ready to go, it will provide an exciting experience for consumers and will only get better as it’s a powerful technical platform to build upon for the next decade of mobile,” said Kevin Michaluk, founder of enthusiast website CrackBerry.com and a conference participant.

“Apple’s iOS is well-developed, but it is actually now the oldest mobile operating system, older than Android, webOS, Windows Phone, while BlackBerry 10 is now the newest mobile platform,” he said.

RIM said in December that it is delaying the launch of phones based on BlackBerry 10 until the later part of 2012 as it is awaiting the availability of a high-powered chip.

Heins didn’t tell the developers on Tuesday exactly when the new phones would hit the market, but reiterated that they would be out “later in the year”. A long-awaited software update for the PlayBook is still due before the end of February.

Heins cited market research from GfK that the Blackberry is the No. 1 smartphone in Britain, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and the Netherlands and that 2 billion BlackBerry apps had been downloaded from RIM’s App World. Six million BlackBerry apps are downloaded every day, he said.

“Those stats were really exciting, and with all the recent negative publicity, this data put things into context, and actually BlackBerry is doing well in the app space,” said Ryan Hall, an app developer and director at Nice Agency in London.

Source:http://ibnlive.in.com/news/blackberrys-nextgen-software-is-ready-to-compete-ceo/228260-11.html

In the trend-setting North American market, BlackBerry phones have gone from must-have messaging toys to outdated clunkers —all in the space of a few years. The new CEO of Research In Motion Ltd, the company behind the phones, says it can claw its way back to the top with new software, but analysts are deeply doubtful.

The two co-CEOs of the Canadian company resigned Sunday. The new CEO is Thorsten Heins, who was the company’s chief operating officer.

Even though the company is in deep trouble and has seen its stock price fall 89 percent from the all-time high it hit in 2008, Heins said Monday that his appointment means “no seismic change” for the company. He’s confident in the course laid out by his predecessors, which hinges on the software revamp.

The new software is called BlackBerry 10, and it’s due in new smartphones late this year. For BlackBerry fans, it should be a welcome upgrade. It’s based on QNX, an industrial-grade operating system that runs devices that need to be very reliable, like core Internet routers and anesthesia monitoring devices.

That means it’s a stable platform that can give BlackBerrys a new look and new capabilities. BlackBerry 10 will have a completely new user interface, built from the ground up for touchscreen input and “very fluid,” Heins said in an interview.

In the trend-setting North American market, BlackBerry phones have gone from must-have messaging toys to outdated clunkers —all in the space of a few years. AFP
But it amounts to BlackBerry tossing out its own quirky, outdated software, first introduced in 1999, and adopting a slick, touch-oriented operating system, much like Android, Google Inc’s popular smartphone software, and the software on the iPhone.

Heins said BlackBerry 10 is “extremely competitive” and insisted that RIM is “not in a catch-up race” with the makers other mobile operating systems. He emphasizes that BlackBerry 10 will offer “multitasking,” or the ability to run several applications at the same time. This is something Google Inc.’s Android software and the iPhone operating system offer in a limited fashion.

Phone software developers generally stay away from full multitasking because it can shorten battery life considerably. Improved multitasking was one of the hallmarks of Palm Inc’s webOS when it launched in 2009, but that didn’t save it from obscurity.

One thing that could entice buyers: the new software will expand the choice of applications greatly, by running ones written for Android. There are hundreds of thousands of such apps, but it’s unclear how many of them will run on BlackBerry 10 without modification.

The PlayBook, RIM’s tablet computer, already runs an early version of BlackBerry 10. RIM had huge hopes for the device when it put it on sale in April, but quickly had to slash the price. In December, the tablets that originally cost $500 were selling for $200, below the cost of making them. RIM wrote off $485 million worth of inventory.

The PlayBook also illustrates the big challenge RIM is facing switching operating systems. It launched without an email program, apparently because it’s very difficult to get QNX to work with the RIM servers that shunt emails around.

Application developers will also have to relearn their tools to write programs for BlackBerry 10, which could prove a big hurdle.

“The platform risks suffering from the same chicken and egg problem as many others— users won’t buy a device without any apps, and developers won’t develop for a platform without any users,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Ovum.

But the main problem analysts see with BlackBerry 10 is that the phones are set to come out so late. They were originally slated for early this year, but pushed to late this year. The company said that was because the right chips weren’t available. When they come out, it will be more than five years since Apple released the first iPhone and set a new standard for phone software.

And even if BlackBerry 10 makes the phones more competitive, that doesn’t mean it can reverse RIM’s fortunes. Analyst Tavis McCourt noted that the history of phone makers who fall on hard times and try to turn things around is not encouraging.

Source:http://www.firstpost.com/tech/why-a-new-software-wont-save-blackberry-191604.html

The decline of Research in Motion‘s Blackberry smartphone, reflected in the resignations tonight of co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, represents the admission of failure — finally — by a leadership regime that had been in place for a decade.

More significantly, it represents the official triumph of software over hardware.

RIM has been killed by the guys in the valley, who offer superior software platforms, Apple and Google. But it’s entirely another question whether RIM actually gets it. Listening to the new CEO Thorsten Heins, there’s no evidence he has what it takes to put RIM on track (as others are pointing out).

“It’s going to be continuity, Heins said lamely, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal about the shuffle. This rambling video of Heins doesn’t help much (see below). Although he has at least pushed to license RIM’s QNX operating system to other device manufacturers, something that others at RIM have resisted.

Only a few years ago, it was hard to predict the RIM downfall. But if you listened to Silicon Valley insiders, RIM’s decline has been inevitable for more than a decade.

RIM became known for its dead simple, really useful wireless email service. In 1998, RIM launched its first pager, the size of a bar of soap, and no one else was doing this near as nicely. C’mon! Email, streamed quickly and reliably over a fun little pocket-sized device? What’s not to like? RIM finessed its device, gaving birth to the “Blackberry” in 1999. The device won ardent fans among the plugged-in set, including Wall Street and other white-collar professionals. The power emailers. The device was too expensive for normal people, but BlackBerry won the hearts and minds of corporate executives. Over the next decade, it sewed up the enterprise market. It became known as the “CrackBerry.” People couldn’t put it down.

But as early as 2002, Silicon Valley insiders were taking swipes at RIM. I remember chatting with Bruce Dunlevie, a partner at Benchmark Capital, located on the valley’s Sand Hill Road. He told me that RIM was really a hardware company stuck in the past. Based in Canada, far away from the valley, RIM didn’t really “get” software, he told me. So he’d invested in a Silicon Valley company called Good Technology. Good focused on software. It had launched a service in 2002 that aimed to compete against the BlackBerry. Good’s wireless email service was agnostic, and so was built to be served over any device. The plan sounded good. But for several reasons, the timing wasn’t right. Broadband capacity was nascent, networks didn’t offer GPS yet, and the killer interface popularized by Apple, along with an appealing software SDK, still hadn’t been invented. Good struggled as an independent company, and it was sold to Motorola. The same thing happened to the Treo, the smartphone launched by Handspring (later acquired by Palm) in 2002. The Treo struggled to bring all of the software pieces together. The hardware wasn’t slick. It was never as straight-forward and as compelling as the BlackBerry.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry continued to dominate. And in this way, Nokia, the largest cellphone maker, did too on the low-end with its “dumb phones.” Until circa 2007, it was the Golden Age of Hardware. The two companies perfected the hardware’s sync with phone networks. Voice quality was good and reliable. All RIM had to do was continue to make more of these useful phones, lower the price, and take ownership of the mass market. As BlackBerry became more entrenched, RIM’s leadership apparently became ever more certain of the company’s direction and superiority.

But in 2007 and 2008, the groundwork was finally laid for software’s resurgence.

Faster cell and data networks, at least in the U.S. and in many European and Asian countries, became ubiquitous. They became smarter too, offering things like location. Phones could also tap servers providing data over these upgraded networks to serve users with a plethora of useful applications. Then Apple launched its SDK, and the mobile app revolution was born. Third party developers used the network, and the phone, to offer their own services. Google’s Android launched shortly thereafter. RIM was left like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water, clinging to what it thought was a safe world of superior hardware.

RIM’s leadership was to blame. It should have seen this coming a long time ago. But its arrogance was manifest in the interview last year of co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, when he lost his cool during an interview with BBC (image left) and abruptly ended it.

The context, of course, was ugly. RIMs company’s stock price lost more than three-quarters of its value last year. It never could get its software platform together: Through 2011, it suffered a significant worldwide BlackBerry outage. Due to inferior innards, its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet paled compared to Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and various other Android tablets. RIM then delayed a well-needed software update on the PlayBook until February. And its revamped, underlying operating system, the Blackberry 10 OS, was delayed until later this year, and was already being called a failure.

As it was, between June 2008, which is when the first GPS-enabled iPhone emerged, and June 2011, RIM’s shareholders lost almost $70 billion — or 82 percent of the company’s value. And its value has continued to decline. RIM is now worth a mere $8 billion, compared to Apple’s $400 billion. Apple, of course, is also a hardware company. But its focus on software, specifically the App Store, and the ecosystem of developers to supply apps to its platform, is what really helped Apple steal the show. And of course, Google, which never ever entered the hardware market, is the originator of the most popular smartphone platform, Android. And it did so by focusing on software, not hardware.

It’s really about time that RIM’s leaders stepped down. Urgent change is needed. And the new guy, Thorsten Heins, whatever he does, needs to focus on software. Although it may be too late.

Source:http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/22/blackberrys-leadership-fail-the-symbol-of-softwares-triumph-over-hardware/

According to the latest speculation doing the rounds, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is all set to license its software to other handset original equipment manufacturers, including Samsung and HTC, reports BGR. Citing analyst firm Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek, who had also confirmed reports of the company replacing Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie from the co-chairman position, with board member Barbara Symiest, the report indicates that RIM has agreed to license its QNX based new operating system, Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others. In a note, Misek has said,“ We think some of this has already been started with RIM likely agreeing to license Blackberry 10 to Samsung, HTC, and possibly others.This would help create a critical mass for the ecosystem and maintain RIM’s monthly service revenue; however, it puts more pressure on the hardware business in the short term. Longer term, it possibly gets people hooked on the RIM ecosystem and may in fact allow them to sell more BB 10 handsets (if they are able to create compelling handsets).”

So if this turns out to be true, won’t it hamper the company’s own prospects in the hardware business? Or does it mark a shift in the company’s position from being an integrated device maker to software and solutions play, as was evident in the recent launch of the Fusion Device Management Suite, which allowed enterprise customers to manage multiple devices including mobile phones and tablets running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems, in addition to BlackBerry devices, from a single console.

- Firstly, RIM has been facing criticism over the recent years, for not being able to upgrade the Operating System on its mobile phones to match up to the levels of Android and iOS, the two major smartphone platforms that have taken over the market, with a growing device and developer ecosystem in place, to support them. Although RIM still maintains a dominating position in corporate environments thanks to its enterprise e-mail solutions and secure messaging services, it’s losing out as the others bring in more enterprise centric features. Microsoft’s WP7, which has a very small marketshare at the moment, is also expected to pose a serious challenge as it integrates Microsoft’s enterprise products including Exchange, Outlook, Office, Sharepoint, Lync and others, specially with Nokia as a dedicated hardware alliance partner.

- The analyst categorically mentions that RIM wants to license BlackBerry 10 and does not indicate that it would be limited to its messaging/e-mail stack. RIM was already offering BlackBerry Connect on Symbian and Windows Mobile based phones including on phones made by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HTC and others that allowed them to access BlackBerry’s email service. But of late, no new device is featuring it. This is also because new BlackBerry handsets are available across all price points, and now feature multimedia capabilities as well, unlike old times when they were more of a work device.

There were rumours of RIM making its BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) messaging platform available, albeit in a limited way, on other mobile OS platforms, but we’ve not seen any new development in that direction, and these were quashed by a company executive. So, we assume that it might license the entire OS, continue making limited devices, and earn through licensing costs and service revenues.

- RIM acquired QNX, and implemented it on its tablet device, the PlayBook. The OS received good reviews for certain features and its multi-tasking abilities, but the tablet flopped because there were no apps to support it, unlike Apple’s iPad which was a big hit due to that one very reason, along with the availability of content such as music, videos and e-books. Moreover, the PlayBook could not perform basic PIM tasks, e-mail and messaging without being connected to a BlackBerry phone with BIS/BES, which was something that was expected to be present out of the box from a device coming out from the RIM stable. The company failed to understand that a tablet (even a phone) was not just a device to browse the web, it has to be supported with a strong content eco-system.

RIM was expected to launch new phone devices based on the same OS, BlackBerry 10 in early 2012 but delayed it to the later half, saying that it could not get enough chips for its new phones. The buzz is that it has not been able to implement BES (BlackBerry’s enterprise service) on the new OS, without which it would not gain acceptance in the corporate segment, and hence the delay. However, its shares crashed and disappointed analysts, even further. The company has to seriously pull up its socks to attract more developers to develop apps for the new platform.

- So if it licenses the new OS to device manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung, which already make Android and Windows Phone 7 devices, RIM will be able to broaden its horizon. Of course, it would lose hardware exclusivity but will be able to financially secure itself with income from licensing and monthly service revenue from its BIS/BES products. Also, HTC and Samsung will be able to offer scale and cost efficiency in hardware production, with their facilities in Asia.

But the big question is why would these OEMs invest in RIM’s platform at a time when it’s on the loosing end? Both HTC and Samsung lead the pack when it comes to Android devices. They are also investing in Windows Phone, though in a limited way. Of course, the enterprise segment is lucrative, but a new untested OS with no established eco-system except of RIM’s messaging legacy, would be hard to peddle.

If RIM really wants to become a mobile software and solutions player, it has to widen its ecosystem and not just focus on e-mail and messaging, but extending it to apps and content.

Source:http://www.medianama.com/2012/01/223-what-if-rim-licenses-blackberry-software-to-other-oems/

In a report that came out today, the world learned that Amazon gave some serious thought into buying Research In Motion. At the same time, we all learned that the people behind the scenes at Research In Motion decided against a sale of any kind, and that any future talk of such a thing wasn’t on the table. No, the company would rather do it based on their own merits and products. Oh, and let’s not forget some restructuring of the corporate hierarchy, too. Let me just be clear in saying that I think it’s great that RIM wants to do things on their own. It shows determination, and that has to count for something. Unfortunately for RIM, though, they’ve been doing things on their own, and it’s just not working. Not anymore.
In the updated report, sources speaking to The Wall Street Journal said that RIM executives had actually gone to manufacturers like Samsung and HTC and talked about licensing BlackBerry OS to them. This isn’t anything new, and we’ve talked about seeing the BlackBerry OS on other devices before in the past. And while some of you out there may want it, I don’t think that’s the point here. Truth be told, if the majority wanted BlackBerry 7, they’d use BlackBerry 7. I have to think it’s a strange situation to assume that it’s the hardware that’s not selling BlackBerry-branded handsets.
We know that’s not the case, right?
As much as I would love to stand behind the fact that RIM apparently wants to do his thing on their own, it’s just not working anymore. It just isn’t. And the fact that BlackBerry 10-based devices won’t be seeing the light of day until the end of 2012 just proves that. Things have been out of control at the Waterloo-based headquarters for quite some time, and no matter how hard RIM tries, or what they do, it doesn’t seem to be enough to do more than just barely keep themselves afloat. We keep talking about the impending fall, and that outlook isn’t changing.
But you know what? RIM has a good idea. They should license out BlackBerry, but not just the OS. No, because people don’t want just the OS. They should license the hardware, too. BlackBerry should be able to focus on creating the best hardware they can, and have the necessary teams to focus on the software, too. Because, there’s no doubt in my mind that if Samsung or HTC were allowed to get their hands on BlackBerry OS, they’d put their proprietary user interfaces on it before they ever released it to the public.
And that’s the kicker. The sweet spot, if you will. Research In Motion’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 is a huge refresh for the smartphone lineage, and it’s one that could very well breathe a breath of fresh air into the company. But, I don’t think it can do it by itself, even with the great hardware. So that’s where licensing the software and hardware to the likes of Samsung, HTC, or even Microsoft could make a huge difference. You let Samsung make the flagship BlackBerry 10 device, featuring the Samsung name, but featuring the hardware and software made by RIM, and featuring Samsung’s altered proprietary TouchWiz UI.
Or you don’t let Samsung touch the hardware at all, but just alter the software with their proprietary UI and see where things go. But, I think RIM needs to license out everything to make a dent – both hardware and software. Whatever that means on the business side of things, whether or not they would have to completely sell themselves to another company, or whatever the details would be, I think that’s a step that RIM needs to take to still be a contender, or even a presence, in the mobile market.

Source:http://www.phonedog.com/2011/12/20/research-in-motion-should-license-out-blackberry-but-not-just-the-software/

BlackBerry-maker RIM is having no luck of late. After announcing a huge write-off on its PlayBook tablet, seeing an executive in its Indonesia operation charged following a stampede at a new device launch, and firing two executives who caused a plane to be diverted, it has seen the “BBX” name it planned to use for software on phones to be released in 2012 injuncted.

Software company Basis International said a US federal court in Albuquerque has granted a temporary restraining order against RIM, barring it from using Basis’ BBX trademark.

The court decision bars RIM from using the trademark at its Asian DevCon conference on Wednesday and Thursday in Singapore.

However, late on Tuesday, RIM appeared to backtrack on using the trademark.

“RIM doesn’t typically comment on pending litigation, however RIM has already unveiled a new brand name for its next generation mobile platform. As announced at DevCon Asia, RIM plans to use the ‘BlackBerry 10′ brand name for its next generation mobile platform,” RIM said.

BBX, the operating system that Research in Motion is counting on to revive its BlackBerry franchise, has run into trouble even before the company could install the system in its smartphone line.

Albuquerque-based Basis International claims the “BBX” name is protected by trademarks it holds and had earlier threatened to take legal action against RIM unless it stopped using the moniker.

Basis said RIM had refused requests to stop using the moniker at the DevCon conference, which resulted in the company filing for the temporary restraining order.

BBX had been the planned name for the software that would power the phones, which will mark a transition to a form of the QNX operating system presently used on the PlayBook.

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/07/rim-bbx-os-injunction?newsfeed=true