Hot Blackberry News

Research In Motion (RIM) and Microsoft announced a partnership to integrate Microsoft’s cloud-based applications into BlackBerry smartphones and the upcoming PlayBook tablet PC.

This is very welcome news to many Blackberry business users, who will be able to have truly seemless, secure integration between their desktop or office PCs, and their handheld or tablet – an experience that so far most smart phone manufacturers have not been able to provide.

The strategic move comes just as RIM is about to launch the BlackBerry Playbook Tablet PC – a device that many market analysts are saying could raise the bar for tablet PCs. RIM is hoping that this alliance will push BlackBerry back into the forefront of the smartphone market – a position that they have been struggling to keep, since recent improvements to Android and iPhone smart phones have thrust them into the enterprise market.

“The cloud has always been core to our business,” Alec Taylor, vice president of Software, Services and Enterprise Marketing for RIM, told analysts during a March 17 presentation. “It’s how we do real-time push… it’s how we developed our world-class security, our back-end integration with carrier systems…as we move forward, we want to be able to integrate and support the multiple organizations and firms that are leading parts of the cloud revolution.”

This alliance will benefit both tech powerhouses. Microsoft has seen some of its enterprise app market share erode with the advent of Google’s suite of free, web-based productivity software, Google Apps. Google’s apps compete with Mircosoft’s Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) — to be the foundation of Office 365. So, the joint-venture helps strengthen Microsoft’s enterprise cloud offerings as it defends against Google.

RIM plans to further expand their cloud-based services later in 2011, and will roll out BlackBerry Protect, a cloud-based solution to secure and protect BlackBerry devices and their content, BlackBerry Management Center, a cloud-based management system aimed at small businesses, and Blackberry Enterprise Service for larger companies looking to move into the cloud.

With numerous Android tablets due to soon hit the market, it appears that Research In Motion wants to position the BlackBerry PlayBook as a very worthy competitor.

Classic clip from the BBC – isn’t geek humor great?!?

Research In Motion (RIM) has begun production of the highly-anticipated Blackberry Playbook Tablet PC.

According to Digitimes, 150,000 to 200,000 units are being produced per month, with the first shipments being ready to send out as early as February.

The Blackberry Playbook is being manufactured by Quanta Computer Inc. in Taiwan, a strategic move by RIM, to prevent white box manufacturers in mainland China from creating knock-offs of the tablet computer, and to protect it’s security features.

Until now, the production progress of the Blackberry Playbook has been kept in a shroud of secrecy. RIM has not yet set a launch date, but market analysts have indicated that a March Playbook launch seems to be expected. RIM expects to ship 1 million Playbook tablets in Q1 of 2011.

Starbucks has taken the customer experience to yet a new level, with the introduction of its Starbucks Card Mobile App available for both Blackberry and iPhone smartphones.

The Starbucks Card Mobile App allows Blackberry users to instantly pay for their Starbucks purchases by tapping their phone on a countertop scanner while displaying the Starbucks Card bar code on their phone. The app also lets users locate Starbucks locations nationwide, as well as locally, top up their Starbucks card, and get their current balance.

To download the Starbucks Card Mobile App and check out mobile payment, BlackBerry smartphone users can text the word “GO” to 70845 or visit http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps/starbucks-card-mobile-bb from their device (Standard message and data rates apply.). It’s available for a variety of BlackBerry smartphones including BlackBerry 8800 series; BlackBerry Bold series; BlackBerry Curve series; BlackBerry Storm; BlackBerry Storm2 and BlackBerry Tour.

The new Black Eyed Peas video to their song “The Time (Dirty Bit)”, from their forthcoming album titled The Beginning, dropped today – with the also forthcoming Blackberry Playbook tablet making it’s acting debut!

Seeing the Playbook ‘in action’, it becomes very apparent to me, that the Playbook – with it’s 7 inch 1080p HD screen, is going to be a much more “portable” computing device than it’s iPad nemesis.

While the 10.1 inch screen found on the iPad may be better suited for classroom use, or use as a wall-mounted TV for a kitchen, I am predicting Blackberry’s tablet is going to run away with the prize for portability, and become very popular with people on-the-go. Apple already proved to us with the third generation iPod Nano, that a smaller screen is not necessarily a deal breaker – if impressive resolution, response, and contrast are all present.

Add support for Adobe Flash, Adobe Air, and HTML5 rich media, to a 7 inch full 1080p display, and I think we are going to see a device that addresses everything people complained about in the first generation iPad. I will but my money where my mouth is, that Research In Motion is going to raise the bar on tablet computing.

With the phrase “tablet computer” becoming all the hype these days in the wonderful world of consumer electronics gadgetry, the Apple vs. Blackberry rivalry is heating up to become as important to pop culture as Coke vs. Pepsi, Vampires vs. Werewolves, or even Wile E. Coyote vs. the Roadrunner.

With both camps bringing already fanatically loyal fan bases to the table, what is going to be interesting is, seeing if the Playbook will have what it takes to make the Apple fanboys take notice and say “Hey! Now that’s fucking cool – I want one!”