The BlackBerry 10 operating system is set to launch in about two weeks, now with 15,000 more applications.

Research in Motion held two Port-A-Thon events on Friday — one focused on the BB 10 Community, and the other on Android developers. In total, it received 15,000 app submissions within 37.5 hours.

RIM’s vice president of develop relations, Alec Saunders, tweeted the news Saturday night, comparing the event to running a marathon. “Thanks to all the devs!” he added.

Beginning at noon on Friday offering a number of incentives based on the volume of approved apps each vendor submitted. With a cap of 20 apps per person, developers porting one to five apps were able to earn $100 (£62) per app, while the first 200 participants to port five to 10 approved apps received one BlackBerry Dev Alpha Device and an additional $100 (£62). Even more extravagant was the prize for those who ported 10 or more apps: the first 10 developers received a paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Europe, on top of the prizes awarded to prior categories.

RIM also held a separate but simultaneous event for Android developers, offering $100 (£62) per eligible app. Those who submitted five or more apps became eligible for a random drawing for one BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

For those developers who missed the weekend’s events, RIM today announced its Last Chance Port-A-Thon, on 18 January beginning at noon. Similar to former Port-A-Thons, it will be a virtual event, so people can log on from anywhere to participate.

by Stephanie Mlot,

We’ve received word from one of our sources that RIM will be discontinuing support for the BlackBerry Monitoring Service found in BlackBerry Enterprise Server on February 16th 2012. Our source received the following notification from RIM:

An End of Life FAQ is below describing more on why this service is being discontinued:

Positioning Statement:

“Please be aware that further development of the BlackBerry® Monitoring Service for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server will no longer continue, and the feature will no longer be supported by RIM effective February 16, 2012. There are several third party solutions available on the market today that can better address the diversity of customers’ needs for this type of service. Customers currently using the service are advised to look into alternative solutions available today from BlackBerry partners.”

What is the BlackBerry Monitoring Service?
The BlackBerry Monitoring Service – a feature introduced in BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5 – is a web‐based management solution designed to help organizations monitor and manage their BlackBerry® Infrastructure.  By providing automated, 24×7 monitoring, the BlackBerry Monitoring Service proactively identifies system alerts or events that could cause an interruption in BlackBerry service and sends detailed alerts to system administrators.

When is the BlackBerry Monitoring Service ending?
The BlackBerry Monitoring Service for BlackBerry Enterprise Server  will no longer be supported by RIM effective February 16, 2012.

What versions of BlackBerry Enterprise Server are affected?
The following versions of BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5 will no longer support the BlackBerry Monitoring Service effective February 16, 2012:
BES 5.0.0; BES 5.0.1; BES 5.0.2; BES 5.0.3

Why is this service ending?
After a thorough review of this feature, RIM believes that the third party solutions available on the market today can better address the diversity of customers’ needs.

Is there an alternative service available? What does BlackBerry recommend customers to do?
Customers currently using the service are advised to look into alternative solutions available today from BlackBerry partners by using the Directory search and searching for “BlackBerry Monitoring”.

Did the service have technical issues? Is that why it’s ending?
No, there is a diversity of customer needs that can be better addressed by third party solutions available on the market today.

Pent-up UK demand for the new iPhone 4S meant that Apple sold more than three times as many phones in October as in any of the three previous months, eclipsing the rival Google platform, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Data released by the research company show Apple’s iPhone took 42.8% of UK smartphone sales in October alone, ahead of all Androidphones, which took 35% in the same period. The figures from ComTech also show the UK market is shifting dramatically towards smartphones: sales of smartphones grew by 43% in October, but the overall phone market dropped by 4% in October as “feature phone” sales nearly halved.

Smartphones made up 69.8% of sales over the three months, meaning 44.8% of the British population now owns a smartphone. But it also leaves 29 million adults in the UK not yet using a smartphone – representing a huge opportunity for rival brands.

The research company says the October boost meant that for the 12 weeks to the end of October, Apple’s market share of UK smartphone sales was 27.8%, compared to 25% in the same period a year before. The Android platform continued to increase its overall lead, powering 46% of smartphones in the 12-week period, compared to 34.2% a year ago.

The Guardian’s calculations suggest that Apple’s sales jumped nearly fourfold in October as the iPhone 4S was released. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, complained that ahead of the launch, sales had slowed down substantially as people waited for the expected launch of the new iPhone – which many expected to be called the “iPhone 5″. For those three months, ComTech’s figures showed the iPhone’s share of sales dropping to just 18.5%. Android phones made up 49%.

Despite looking the same as the iPhone 4, which was released in summer 2010, the iPhone 4S has clearly boosted Apple’s fortunes in the UK. Dominic Sunnebo, global insight director at ComTech, noted that 75% of sales of iPhones in the period went to people who already owned one – indicating strong brand loyalty among existing customers, but equally that Apple may not be growing its market as quickly as it might want, as the overall smartphone market grew faster than that 25%.

The rapid expansion of Android sales suggests it is reaching new users who have not previously used the platform or even a smartphone.

Other data from ComTech showed that for the three-month period, Nokia’s now-deprecated Symbian OS made just 3.9% of sales, down by 10.2%, and the Windows Mobile platform – officially all but discontinued – almost vanished, making just 0.5% of sales. BlackBerry maker RIM also saw its share fall, to 19.6% from 20.9%.

Microsoft’s new Windows Phone platform saw a small uptick in sales, to 1% of the market from 0.2% a year ago, when it had just been launched. The ComTech figures predate the launch of Nokia’s Lumia range, which are expected to boost Windows Phone’s share noticeably.

Sunnebo said: “The October launch of the hugely anticipated iPhone 4S has catapulted Apple into second place among operating systems based on the last 12 weeks of sales. However, if you just look at the month of October, Apple took a whopping share of all smartphone sales, giving it a significant lead over Android – a feat many thought was impossible.

“With nearly a year and a half between iPhone launches there has been huge pent-up demand for a new Apple device. We have previously seen that Apple customers tend to be very loyal to the brand. However, it is still astonishing that 75% of new iPhone 4S owners previously owned an iPhone. Most of these loyalists tended to own previous generation devices such as the 3G or 3GS models. However, 14% previously owned an iPhone 4, demonstrating that quite a few people bought themselves out of their contracts to get hold of the 4S. Clearly the upgraded processor, camera and unveiling of Siri assistant was enough to generate excitement among the Apple community.”

Sunnebo continues: “While unwavering loyalty is clearly great news for Apple, it is likely to be a relief for other smartphone operators. With Apple predominantly driving sales from within its existing customer base, it leaves the field wide open for the likes of Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsungand HTC to focus on converting the remaining 29 million adults who don’t yet have a smartphone to their brand.”

Kantar ComTech UK smartphone sales data

A leaked BlackBerry OS 7 ROM meant for the Bold 9900 device gives insight into the features that the company plans to bring to the device.

According to The Verge, the leaked ROM features include Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities, emergency alert messages feature and the ability to make calls over a Wi-Fi connection.

The Wi-Fi calling feature allows people to make voice calls using a Wi-Fi network instead of the carrier’s own network. The feature is currently only offered by T-Mobile while AT&T and Verizon are reluctant to offer it.

The feature was discovered while testing the ROM, version 7.0.1.74, on a T-Mobile smartphone. Apart from this, the other newly discovered features did not have the element of surprise because RIM had earlier mentioned them while unveiling the BlackBerry OS 7.

The update is also expected to come with the BlackBerry Tag near-fields-communications feature as well.

The leaked ROM indicates that the final release of the update will be launched soon enough. Research in Motion’s delays and poor choice of hardware has led to a decline of its smartphone market share, which is now dominated by Apple and Google.

Source:

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has reached a point when it is giving away a free PlayBook tablet to people who purchase the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software.

PlayBook has seen terrible sales figures since its launch, getting buried beneath the landslide sales figures of the Apple iPad, which appeals to both consumers and enterprise users.

In its latest attempt to get rid of the tablet device, the company is giving away a free 16GB PlayBook tablet to people who upgrade to the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5 between now and the end of December.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5 is a server tool designed to allow enterprise IT managers manage mobile devices and increase employee productivity.

The offer comes just days after BestBuy slashed the price of the struggling tablet to $199 across America. RIM also recently started a buy two get one free offer for enterprise customers.

Despite the price cuts and recent offers, no one really seems to want to buy the tablet. Most of the enterprises are now testing and are in the process of deploying the iPad for their employees, a huge blow to the PlayBook.

Source: Ravi Mandalia

While we impatiently wait for RIM to slash the price of its PlayBook tablet in the UK (as it did in the US last week), at least one supplier has cut the price of the tablet by nearly half.

Top-rated Ebay Seller Digigood is selling the tablet for £224 which is 44 per cent off the suggested selling price of the item.

The product carries a one year warranty and is brand new in its original retail box. The price drop may be the preamble to an exit of RIM from the tablet market ahead of the release of the Amazon Kindle Fire which is essentially a “lite” version of the RIM Blackberry Playbook for less than £200.

RIM’s tablet was first presented back in September last year and only came to market in 2011. It packs a 7-inch 1024×600 pixel capacitive touchscreen, 1GB RAM, a TI OMAP4430 dual core chipset clocked at 1GHz, 16GB onboard storage, a five-megapixel rear camera and a three-megapixel front facing one, microUSB, microHDMI ports and is powered by QNX OS.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of rough edges, like the fact that it doesn’t come with a proper email client and has to rely on an optional Blackberry Smartphone to come to life.

Source: Desire Athow

Research in Motion, it seems, is gearing up for a new age of smartphone wars with its latest BBX based smartphone – dubbed the BlackBerry London, images of which has surfaced on the web.

BBX is basically an operating system which is based on the QNX operating system that powered the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. PlayBook didn’t make it to the best selling charts though.

Research in Motion, a month back, at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco, revealed their plans to develop the BBX OS without providing any other detail so nothing could be presumed about it except that it will work for BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 software.

The latest development is that an image has been leaked by Verge as reported by BGR which can be of a BBX phone. The image shows that there is no keyboard and has an edgy designed large all-touch display.

This image fits the reports that BBX phones will avoid a physical keyboard which is a popular characteristic of RIM products.

If rumours are to be believed BBX will be released on June next year and it will have TI OMAP dual-core CPU with 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB internal storage along with a rear camera of 8 mega pixels and a front camera of 2 mega pixels, The Verge reported.

Source:

Research in Motion (RIM) recently made an announcement that their BlackBerry devices based on the BlackBerry 7 OS have undergone an independent evaluation by a “third party Common Criteria evaluation” facility.

The outcome is positive as the product met the “security criteria for evaluation assurance level (EAL) 4+”.

Common Criteria is a highly respected international standard to validate that products meet specific security requirements. The modus operandi of evaluation is extensive, comprehensive and performed by an independent third party ,which is EAL4+ certified. They examine the design of the product, methods of software development and mechanisms of security.

Senior Vice President, BlackBerry Security at RIM, Scott Totzke said, “Security is one of the most important considerations for enterprise customers and we are proud that BlackBerry 7 OS has earned this rigorous certification,” as reported by Market Watch.

RIM, a market leader in information assurance and compliance, set a new standard for other companies by going through third party independent security testing along with certifications of their very popular BlackBerry products.

Source: Erica Thinesen

Classic games such as Bejeweled and The Sims are being offered free to Blackberry owners.

The games, plus personal productivity tools and utilities, are compensation for a three-day global blackout that started on 10 October.

A faulty switch at a data centre left millions around the world unable to use messaging and web browsing services on their handsets.

The free apps will become available for four weeks from 19 October.

Critical problem

In a statement announcing the giveaway, Mike Laziridis, chief of Blackberry owner Research in Motion, apologised again for the three-day service stoppage.

“We are grateful to our loyal Blackberry customers for their patience,” he said. “We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to help prevent something like this from happening again.”

RIM faced serious criticism over the stoppage. Thousands of people turned to Twitter and other social media networks to express their poor opinion of the company and its stuttering efforts to fix the problems.

In total, 12 apps are being offered to customers and RIM said more would be made available in the coming weeks.

As well as games such as Texas Hold’em Poker and Bubble Bash 2, users can get Photo Editor Ultimate and DriveSafe.ly pro. The software is available via the Blackberry App World store.

The programs, which Blackberry claims are worth more than $100 (£63), will be free until 31 December 2011.

Business customers are being offered a free month of technical support. Those who already have a support contract will be offered a month of Blackberry’s enhanced support service.

Analysts said the package of apps may not go far enough.

“RIM has responded swiftly but this won’t undo the damage done to its reputation,” said Geoff Blaber from CCS Insight. “This may go some way to appeasing customers but what’s critical is that the problem does not repeat itself.”

Mobile operators are also mulling compensation packages for customers. Spanish telecoms firm Telefonica, which owns the UK’s O2, said it would offer a package to customers but it is not clear what form it will take.