The latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry® was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011.

The BlackBerry® global subscriber base grew 35% year on year in December to 75 million. The UK customer base is going from strength to strength with over eight and a half million active subscribers by the end of 2011.

This is good news for RIM. They surely need it.

I’m going to be posting more about them as I’m due an updated opinion post given the shenanigans over the last few weeks. The short version: RIM is down but most definitely not out. Depending on how the company responds to the new chap, I think RIM could come back very strong.

I recognise that this is less than scientific but they can certainly be considered anecdotal. I simply spoke to the IT director or senior manager — whoever was available to have a chat.

When I called, I introduced myself as the Editor at Mobile Industry Review and gave them a quick overview, pointing out that I was doing a quick bit of BlackBerry research.

I came up with three questions as I didn’t want to impose too much on their time. Indeed I didn’t expect them to be as polite as they were. (I ended up getting a whole load of feedback from each question.)

Here are the questions I asked along with the rather simple results:

- – - – -

Do you have BlackBerry email services?

100% (all five said yes)

Do you intend staying with BlackBerry for the foreseeable future? (i.e. 12-24 months)

80% (4 out of 5)

Are you considering other smartphone platforms?

60% (3 out of 5)

- – - – -

So, yes, RIM are going through a lot of trauma but I wonder whether their core business will still remain relatively secure. That said, relying on core business simply won’t cut it in the smartphone wars. Also rather worrying is that 3 out of 5 are having their heads turned by other platforms. This is not surprising given the consumerisation of IT and the amount of employees hankering to try out the latest gizmos.

[An interesting aside -- one of the chaps I spoke to pointed out that they currently pay for their BlackBerry services and licenses via their operator but plan to stop doing this soon because they intend swapping to Office365. They'll still need BlackBerry 'service' from their operator, but they won't need the client access license costs for their exchange server -- because it's all wrapped into the Office365 monthly service fee. This is good news for RIM's continuity but bad from a reduced license revenue perspective.]

Over to the team at BlackBerry Europe:

The inaugural BlackBerry® DevCon Europe 2012 takes place on February 7th and 8th in Amsterdam, and we want you to be there. By attending, you’ll be among the first to witness the birth of the next generation in application development, BlackBerry 10.

Whether you’re new to developing for the BlackBerry platform, or you’re an experienced app master, take up this offer and you’ll be able to attend at half the cost to learn all there is to know about developing for 70 million-strong BlackBerry community.

To get your 50% discount, visit online registration now, using this unique code before December 24th: DBRM03

Free PlayBook for all attendees By attending BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012, you’ll also receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

To find out more about the event sessions, and how you could help shape the future of BlackBerry apps, visit http://www.blackberrydevcon.com/europe/content/sessions/topics.

All things being equal, I’m definitely going to be there (there’s a baby on the way at the end of February so I’m having to play things rather fluid).

Just a reminder — this 50% offer is only valid until tomorrow so you must be quick if you’re intending coming along.

In many countries, RIM’s “touch and type” offer is going down a storm — as the crowds in Jakarta today attest. I strongly recommend reading this post from The Associated Press to find out all about the excitement for RIM’s latest device, the Bold 9790.

Just look at the people queuing! Apparently well over 3,000 queued to buy — and the first lucky 1,000 got the device at 50% of the standard $540 price. Good deal. No wonder the riot police had to be deployed.

In fairness to the other brands out there, I’m sure 3,000 folk would turn up for a half price iPhone or Android device at launch. Still, nice work RIM!

The business cloud services space is hotting up big time. Google’s been at it for quite a while with Google Apps and they’ve recently been joined by Microsoft’s Office365… which is getting rather compelling. I’ve checked it out and I found it pretty smart — indeed I remember commenting that if Office365 offered BlackBerry service (i.e. full email, calendar, task sync) then I’d think very, very carefully about possibly swapping to it away from Google Apps.

And whaddya know?

It’s been much rumoured but now it’s here — in beta form. If you’re an Office365 subscriber, you now get BlackBerry services — all that sync goodness — entirely free:

BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services delivers a simple and affordable way for companies to manage BlackBerry smartphones with Microsoft® Office 365.

BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is available at no additional charge to Microsoft Office 365 subscribers. This secure service, hosted by Research In Motion (RIM), directly links Microsoft® Exchange Online with BlackBerry smartphones to offer reliable, mobile access to synchronized email, calendar, contacts, tasks and memo pads.

From almost anywhere, the intuitive, web-based interface provides the tools administrators need to perform common tasks, password reset or find, lock or wipe lost or misplaced devices.

An integrated single sign-on between Office 365 and BlackBerry Business Cloud Services gives end users online self-service options that help make managing devices more efficient than ever.

Love it.

Highly, highly compelling. You can read all about it here.

I’m going to resurrect my Office365 trial account (if it’s not already been deleted — they did email me to warn me) and see if I can get this working.

I wasn’t sure what I’d encounter. If you believe any of the media stories circulating recently, RIM is toast. The service outage didn’t help the company’s reputation.

Alec Saunders is their new guy in charge of fixing everything. Or, in other words, “Developer Relations”. No longer a sideshow at RIM, the company has, I think, recognised that it is nothing without apps. Indeed, the services game is becoming such a business critical requirement for handsets nowadays that it’s almost impossible to launch a new handset into market — because you need the ‘ecosystem’ to support it, immediately.

It’s a strange conundrum for RIM, given that they’ve *always* been a service provider — you can’t buy a RIM device and use it properly without first buying the “BlackBerry” bolt-on or service plan. RIM’s been doing services since day one. Just, it’s not packaged in the same manner.

For instance, if you check out the iPhone 4S’s latest addition, Siri, you’ll find it’s voice interaction difficult to ignore. Android’s now got that too. The market’s waiting to see what Windows Phone will offer. Naturally, I expect the same from RIM shortly.

There are so many things RIM needs to get right: Device specification, user interface, price point… And then third-party applications and additional value-add services. Chucking cash at the Angry Birds team works. But until the experience is as-good-as the other platforms, the consumer will rightly assert that it’s not good enough. Witness, for example, the rather limited Evernote version for BlackBerry compared to the iPhone or Android alternative. Or if you really want a shocking experience, try out Instagram on iPhone and then InstaPhoto on BlackBerry. The difference in user experience is unfortunately horrendous.

The fault is with the developers. RIM themselves have created (or supervised) some phenomenally good looking ‘superapps’ for their platform such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. The challenge for developers is investing the time to make their apps look good on RIM’s device portfolio. Most folk don’t bother. So you end up with a series of application abominations in the BlackBerry App World. RIM — unfortunately — is being judged by this bar.

Alec Saunders, the company’s new Developer chap, is working hard to change this. In his keynote he pointed out that RIM has scrapped it’s antiquated Java bollocks. I won’t bore you with the technology, suffice to say that you no longer need 3x rocket scientists at £1,500/day to write your RIM applications. Indeed you can now write phenomenally good looking functional apps with just HTML. Or use a common C framework such as Marmalade.

Alec is on a mission to change minds. He spent a large part of his keynote highlighting that RIM is still alive. Yup. He had to. He explained that the company’s subscribers increase 40% in the last year. Hardly a company that’s dead, eh? He explained that on average, 13% of developers on RIM’s platform are making $100k+ from their apps. RIM’s customers, he said, are downloading apps. Seriously. On average RIM reports each user downloads 24 apps a year. Highly respectable. Alex went through a host of different myths peddled by the market and exploded them. This was important to do.

But — and there is a but — unless RIM gets behind this messaging properly, with significant spend, it’ll all be irrelevant.

The facts don’t lie. People are still buying BlackBerries. RIM is still the number one smartphone maker in dozens of countries. I do mean *dozens*. Like the UK, for example. The new handsets are gorgeous. This is a fact. Well, it’s a perception. But I’m sure even the most outspoken BlackBerry haters will acknowledge the Bold 9900 (for example) is a nice phone.

The company’s fast move toward seriously adopting HTML5 into the DNA of their new platform (christened “BBX”) is laudable. If there weren’t so many continual media reputation issues, I’m confident the majority would be looking at RIM after last week’s event and expressing significant excitement at the company’s next generation of devices and services. What they showed from a platform viewpoint was hugely exciting. The efforts they’re making with improving platform development tools are brilliant. I’ve asked RIM for a video of the all new Rogers Cup tennis app — it’s made entirely in HTML5 (for the PlayBook) and it’s simply stunning to behold. I sat in on some HTML5 developer tutorials and, goodness me, it’s child’s play to write an app that looks beautiful on both the PlayBook and the raft of RIM handsets — with backward compatibility to all recent device generations. When I say child’s play, I mean it. You can knock up a gorgeous app with just a few lines of HTML and a bit of javascript.

This should bring attention. It should get web developers thinking about the BlackBerry platform — especially when they can actually *do* things with HTML5 (like interface with the address book and so on). It’s also going to become more and more easy to point-and-click port your apps to RIM.

But is it all too late? Well, no one’s announced a takeover yet, right?

So no, I don’t think it’s too late.

The next few months are going to be critical for the company though. We’re going to need to start seeing BBX devices (handsets and next gen PlayBooks) and we’re going to need to see more and more app/service developers adopt the platform.

I’m feeling pretty positive.

1. It’s a tangible offering — real apps, real brand names
2. It’s a recognition of the annoyance and frustration that many did feel
3. It’s highlighting App World in the press
4. In order to take advantage of the deal, the consumer will need to have App World installed and activated — I’m sure there are still quite a lot out there who don’t have this properly setup yet, so this should convert a few more folk
5. It’s not actually $100 credit, indeed it should be quite cost effective for RIM
6. It draws a line in the sand for RIM — many that I’ve spoken to have already forgotten the outages

Now then you’d think that the $100 of apps would be in the form of a credit, right? Not quite. RIM has been very clever with the offer. Here are the apps you can get for free on Wednesday:

SIMS 3 (Electronic Arts)
Bejeweled (Electronic Arts)
N.O.V.A. (Gameloft)
Texas Hold’em Poker 2 (Gameloft)
Bubble Bash 2 (Gameloft)
Photo Editor Ultimate (Ice Cold Apps)
DriveSafe.ly Pro (iSpeech.org)
iSpeech Translator Pro (iSpeech.org)
Drive Safe.ly Enterprise (iSpeech.org)
Nobex Radio™ Premium (Nobex)
Shazam Encore (Shazam)
Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant (Vlingo)

Anyone that’s been around the BlackBerry ecosystem for any length of time will recognise every app there. I’d go so far as to say that it looks to me like RIM will have put together a really good deal for those developers to avoid having to pay anywhere near full price to include the app in this compensation offer. Each of the developers in the list is exceedingly well known to RIM.

The app list is well chosen. They’re all good ones.

If you’re an enterprise customer, then you’ll apparently be shortly getting details about how you can qualify for some free tech support from RIM. That is perfectly fine. It’s a line drawn under the sand. Although I suspect most of the enterprises in question will smile nicely and move on. Memories are short and I suspect a lot of enterprises are already getting on with life now that things are back to normal.

So good move RIM!

I’ve therefore managed to avoid using the Bold for a few days whilst I’ve actually been using my laptop more. You know how it is at conferences.

Back on the Bold this evening I had to breathe a mental sigh of relief. Welcome back! Oh how I missed the super-fast messaging capabilities of the Bold (and the BlackBerry platform).

I grabbed the Bold just now and rattled through about five Direct Messages in about 10 seconds. I can type *fast* on a Bold.

The device is connected through WiFi via the MacBook Air. My Air is running on the hotel connection, sharing it’s data connection wirelessly. So I don’t need to use AT&T or T-Mobile here at excruciating roaming rates.

The other super thing? Well, the moment you pick up WiFi the BlackBerry Services route everything intelligently through that. So my email is right there too. I’ve just been flying through that too.

The Google Talk integration, Twitter, Facebook plus email… Yup I still do like the BlackBerry experience!

[Authored on the Bold using the native WordPress app]

All you need to do is turn up on site with the app code (A “COD” file bundle, whatever the hell that is) and some assets (e.g. image/icon/logos) and baam — the team there, on site, will help you go through the deployment process there-and-then.

If you’ve got everything ready beforehand (like your file assets and whatnot) then the process will take just minutes. You will be able to more or less walk out of the App Express zone with your app deployed into App World.

Obviously there are bound to be one or two kinks in the process — especially if you’re like me and don’t quite read all the instructions in advance — but there will be a team of developers in the App Express area standing by to help out.

And if you haven’t yet picked up a PlayBook, just by registering and attending DevCon next week, you’ll be able to pick one up free of charge! (More details here.)

As for me I still haven’t had any success at getting a Mobile Industry Review app developed for the PlayBook yet. I’m going to see if I can hire a chap to sort that out. Perhaps I’ll try and get someone to make an HTML5 news reader ‘app’ that I can have deployed to the PlayBook next week? We shall see.

I’ve got an email account at one of the companies I consult with regularly. They’re a top FTSE 100 firm and they were seriously challenged by this week’s BlackBerry outage. One of the implications of the continued outage was that the company’s help desk team obviously sent out frequent updates to everyone in the company.

So everyone was told of the BlackBerry outage. Everybody. Everyone was reminded, constantly, just how reliant their business was on RIM technology.

Before today, I think it’s fair to say that most IT teams didn’t fully appreciate how much their businesses actually rely on the ‘BlackBerry Cloud’. It’s easy to consider the BlackBerry just a client device useful for checking mail, but, something you can certainly do without if needs be, especially since the IT team is also responsible for you laptop/desktop and the mail servers. This Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday, many executives got a rude awakening.

Those who’d already deployed iPhone or Android or Windows Phone were perfectly fine. Exchange via ActiveSync was obviously unaffected. The amount of crowing and ribbing I witnessed between those with iPhones and those with ‘dead’ BlackBerries was rather fun to watch.

My biggest disappointment with this week’s outage is the amount of phenomenally destructive free advertising that’s been dedicated to validating the media’s assertion that RIM is dead, dying or moving toward that state. This viewpoint has been building and building over the past year — despite the company’s devices retaining the #1 or #2 positions in dozens upon dozens of countries.

The way the company’s top management has handled the problem has been rather frustrating.

This wasn’t a mere technical hiccup. In fact, this week’s critical issue was next to nothing to do with server nodes or switches. No. It demonstrated that RIM’s top, top management has zero clue about the company’s market perception. The competitors were just waiting for this to happen. The timing, the scale, the length of the interruption was pitch perfect.

Staying broadly silent across 24 hours and then 48 hours was not the answer. Oh no. Not when EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS was sending emails to ALL OF THEIR STAFF telling them (I paraphrase), “BlackBerry services are still down and RIM aren’t saying anything, so we’ve nothing to tell you”

Not only did this make Europe’s IT help desk teams look rather impotent, it will also have served as a warm reminder for the top IT brass to shake off that, ‘bring your own device’ or ‘convert everyone to iPhone’ proposals.

I arrived into my hotel room last night in New York to find the team at CNN mocking BlackBerry in a live segment that must have lasted at least 5 minutes. Mocking the company! I do mean, mocking. They even included a segment of one of their producers going nuts about being unable to ‘make the news’ (or words to that effect) because of the outage.

I think I’m right in saying that if RIM experiences one more continued multi-business-day outage, they will be toast.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. In fact the light is arriving around about now. Most of us will forget the outages very, very quickly. The reality is that millions of folk really like their BlackBerry experience and provided service is working, they’ll remain happy.

Especially since many will have signed multi-year contracts with their operators

I’m sure a few will be going spare about the days of productivity they lost. Some uber frustrated individuals will have already swapped to another platform. The broad, broad majority though? They’ll carry on as normal.

Outages do happen. It’s significantly inconvenient. But it’s working now.

So I don’t think many consumers will be hacking their BlackBerries to pieces over the outage. I also think that provided RIM can continue to innovate with its handsets and operating systems, the future looks good.

I still don’t think there’s anything better than a BlackBerry for messaging.

Next week it’s DevCon Americas, the biggest BlackBerry event on the West Coast for quite a while. I’m hopeful that the company will reveal some exciting updates — or perhaps give some glimpses into what’s coming next. I’m also interested to see how the company addresses this week’s outage to the BlackBerry faithful.

So what do you think? What’s your view?

In today’s fast paced, always-on connected environment, it’s super-important for RIM to continue to manage their reputation aggressively and offensively (as apposed to playing defence — or, in some cases not bothering with defence at all).

The recent news of RIM’s network failing on Monday and Tuesday, however intermittent, are the proverbial nails in coffins that a lot of people have been searching around for.

The media has understandably seized on the downtime, highlighting this issue as ‘yet another misstep’. That, I don’t agree with. However I can’t argue with the fact that the timing is significantly inconvenient.

A catastrophic network failure really doesn’t help RIM’s image.

What’s worse, though, is that all the mainstream media reporting I’ve seen contains phrases like, “RIM could not be reached for comment,” or “RIM declined to comment on the issue.” This is the last thing folk want to be hearing, especially the fans, and especially the customers.

The design of the RIM infrastructure offers seriously advantages to end consumers, especially in the context of data consumption and compression. This is why so many operators are absolutely delighted to offer their consumers ‘unlimited’ fair use data on their BlackBerry service plans for next to nothing. Or, at the very least, unlimited email data — the point being that because most of the data is super-compressed and travels across RIM’s own networks, it’s fairly easy to deal with.

Historically, too, it’s been rather difficult to use a lot of data on your BlackBerry. Take the previous generation Curve — playing Youtube or streaming anything on it is rather complicated. It’s possible, but on an EDGE connection, the amount of time you waste staring at the little data arrows going back and forth is a great encouragement not to bother.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a significant RIM outage so I wonder how user tolerance has changed over say, the last few years. How many RIM customers were mildly annoyed or supremely inconvenienced by a loss of connectivity? I suspect a lot more than, say, two or three years ago. A delay in email arriving is one thing, having your whole device basically switch off (from a data context) for a number of hours is a serious issue.

I doubt that the outage has done much to damage RIM’s on-going fortunes with those consumers impacted over the last few days. I reckon most people will be *annoyed* in bold, italics and possibly capital letters, but annoyed enough to change platform? I don’t think so. That’s a big decision, a big step — and only likely to impact RIM at the contract/device change point. So there’s time for people to forget.

I worry that RIM isn’t doing all it could be to counter the mainstream media. I almost wish that the company had been conducting crisis-PR operations 24/7 for the last year. The company can’t afford to be operating business as usual public relations outreach.

To allow the media to report that RIM’s EMEA network has been down and that the company ‘couldn’t be reached for comment’ is unacceptable. Here’s how the Telegraph recorded the news of Tuesday’s failure:

“A spokesman for RIM declined to comment on the latest technical failure, which struck at around 1PM.”

And here’s a hugely damaging statement from the Telegraph:

RIM has also been criticised for its public response to the failures. It only acknowledged the yesterday’s crash after millions of users had been without services for several hours and it has made no statement on the cause.

Dear me!

I’m off to the BlackBerry DevCon Americas event next week — I’m hugely excited to go along and see what they’ve got coming. It’s going to be interesting to take the temperature of audience there.

Come on RIM!

It just a week-and-a-bit before I arrive into San Francisco for the BlackBerry DevCon event. I’m in Houston first, followed by New York, before flying into the Valley. So that means I’ve been doing the usual jiggery-pokery with hotels and flights. In many cases, I’ve been lucky enough to have a colleague or agency take part of some of the scheduling and booking. In other cases, I’ve sorted it out myself.

Mid-way through I thought I should really try out BlackBerry Travel properly. I’ve had a wee look previously but I’ve not really had the opportunity to use it in anger since the new Bold 9900 arrived.

It was about time.

BlackBerry Travel is a key offering on the platform — just like Facebook and Twitter. It’s a ‘super-app’ — that is, it makes full use of the device capabilities including calendar and messaging integration.

And it’s magic!

Perhaps the most challenging element of business travel nowadays is juggling everything and having the right information at your fingertips, *all* of the time. My schedule next week is a good example. I’m on 6 different flights, 4 different hotels, 3 cities. Trying to keep all the booking numbers and timings in order gets challenging. You end up having to print stuff out and place it in chronological order just to make sense of it all. Not any more.

Once activated on your phone (and entirely free of charge), BlackBerry Travel scans your inbox. The moment it comes across a booking record email — or any of those long complicated corporate travel confirmation emails, it springs into action. It’s really fast. The app parses the email and extracts all the relevant bits and builds a trip for you.

Now, I knew this. I’m sure I’ve actually had a briefing on this too. But seeing it in the flesh, using it in anger? Amazing.

The first part of my upcoming journey to be confirmed by email were the outbound flights. The email arrived and almost simultaneously, I received a prompt in my inbox from BlackBerry Travel telling me that it had added them.

I clicked through. And, I’m delighted to say I was stunned. Boom! There was the flight schedule and ticketing information organised beautifully. The app then pointed out that although I was due to arrive into Houston on the 10th, I didn’t have any accommodation arranged. Would I like some help with that, asked the app?

Geez! Yes. I clicked. Boom! Again! All of a sudden I saw a list of available hotels along with prices in my local currency. Unfortunately I couldn’t book them as that was being done for me via another email.

When that booking was made — woosh — the BlackBerry Travel app was updated immediately, now with all the relevant hotel details.

Simply phenomenal.

Plus, my device calendar now has the various flight details programmed in. Excellent.

My week has continued like this. As another booking is and received by my email, it’s automatically integrated. So now I have a beautiful itinerary on my phone. Hugely, hugely valuable.

I’ve hooked it up to LinkedIn so it helpfully tells me who amongst my network is nearby at the particular locations in my itinerary. Yelp is also directly integrated too so finding restaurants and the like is that bit easier.

Plus, weather is integrated as well. Useful, because it looks like it’s going to be rather hot in Houston.

I’m seriously impressed.

You’ll no doubt have seen similar from the likes of TripIt (which I also use) however the super-tight and seamless integration with BlackBerry Travel is nothing short of astounding. When I think of the amount of hassle I’ve had to go through in the past writing all this stuff down or printing sheet-after-sheet and placing it all into a special plastic cover.. I’m simply delighted with the app.

If you’re a BlackBerry user and you travel regularly, I strongly recommend taking a look and trying it out.

You can find out more at blackberry.com — you’ll get it on any modern BlackBerry.

Months ago when I first got hands-on with the BlackBerry Bold at BlackBerry World, I thought it was gorgeous.

But, it was pre-release.

And I try not to think too much about devices that are specifically marked as pre-release. There are often substantial changes before the device hits the shelves.

Now I stopped doing actual handset reviews years ago. I tired quickly of having to look objectively at a phone. Well, not even objectively. Laboriously listing out megapixel specs was, I recognised, virtually irrelevant to the Mobile Industry Review reader.

Instead, here is a set of viewpoints relating to the device.

I’ve had hands-on for two weeks. It’s been my primary device for this period. I swapped my BES service to this one from my old Bold 9780. I installed all my standard apps. It’s been used in anger.

It’s fast
I don’t give a toss about RAM or CPUs. They mean nothing unless the phone ‘works fast’. This is my viewpoint. I’ve used plenty of phones with brilliant specs only to find the actual usage rubbish. So I am happy to pronounce this Bold fast. Make sure you’re in a good signal area and try installing an app. It’s a dream — the download and installation is much improved.

Virtually no waiting
Related to the point above, I hardly ever see the hour glass now. This is important — whatever RIM did, it’s made it a lot nicer to use as a result.

The Web Browser
Finally you can load proper full-size websites with your Bold. That’s about it. It works nicely. It’s not a second-class experience any more.

Touch works
The whole touch thing works. I really like it. Now and again I want to touch the screen, whether it’s tapping a link on a webpage or hitting the send button on an email, it’s really nice to be able to use the screen in this way. Everything works as you expect. I haven’t encountered any exceptions. Previous RIM touch screen experiences required a little bit of patience and, sometimes, a few taps, before things worked as expected. Not any more. By the way, when you’re on a call and put the phone to your head, the screen switches off — just as the iPhone does. (And then it comes on again when you take it away). An important requirement. I’m pleased to see this one was added.

The keyboard
Without a doubt the keyboard is the best thing about the BlackBerry. This is not to minimise the device’s other achievements and capabilities. I want a BlackBerry primarily for the QWERTY keyboard. So do you, right? Precious few of us are actually good at typing on an iPhone for any length of time. If you need to message-in-anger, you need a physical keyboard and you need a BlackBerry. There’s almost an extra key’s worth of width added to this new Bold (compared to the old). It took me a day or so to adjust to having more space (it looks to be the same form factor as the original Bold 9000) but once I did, ahhh. Bisto. Genius. Love it. The clicks, the angle of the keys, the spacing, the forming of the whole experience: They really do know what they’re doing. RIM’s keyboards, particularly this one, make everything else look like a Fisher Price toy in comparison.

The width
It’s really slim. It feels slim. And when you’re typing on the keyboard, it feels really nice. I feel modern using it. Typing away on the slim keyboard feels very good.

Handsome
It is handsome. The metal edge — similar to the iPhone 4 — looks impressive. The device looks futuristic. It looks good on the table, on the desk, in the hand. It’s been drawing admiring glances from lots of people as I’ve been using it. This is good. It’s not a critical feature but it’s nice to have.

Materials
The 9900 is slim but chunky. It feels sturdy. Throw it gently on to the desk or restaurant table and it’ll make a pleasing sound. The back casing is really nice to touch. The metals, the screen, the whole package feels ‘worth’ it.

Main Buttons
The main buttons — call, blackberry menu, back, end — they have a lovely feel. They indent really nicely. I like pressing call/hanging up. It just feels good.

Speakerphone
Press ‘s’ during a call and the speaker phone switches on and just works. This is something I’ve been using a lot with the Bold and I’m delighted to say performance is maintained in this version of the device.

BlackBerry OS 7
I’m liking what RIM has done with OS version 7. They’ve retained the familiar RIM look and feel but brought a wealth of mini innovations that really improve the overall experience. For example, everything is nicely connected. Twitter integration is second-to-none. If you’re into Facebook, you’ll seriously enjoy what they’ve done with integration there too. Everything is accessible, connected and integrated into the device. For example, you can send stuff easily to Twitter/Facebook/Text/MMS/Email. They’ve really thought about the whole connected messaging experience.

Twitter integration
A supplemental on this. I am seriously impressed at the revisions the team has been doing with the Twitter client. Direct messages appear in the inbox. Hit ‘r’ and reply (with convenient character count). There’s no swapping into different clients or having to wait whilst an app opens. You can compose a Twitter message directly from the inbox. You’re also notified about replies — for example, “You have 4 replies” — within the inbox. Click on that and the Twitter client loads instantly (it’s running in the background, refreshing at the duration you set). I don’t think there’s a better, faster, integrated, more effective Twitter facility on any other mobile platform.

App World is fast
The App World is improving all the time and the current version is really zippy. I’m now enjoying flicking through the carousel of apps.

Calling, texting
Calling is perfectly fine. I’ve nothing particular to report. I just wanted to point this out. Texting, by the way, is a joy. I’m just incredibly fast on the Bold keyboard!

Niggles?
There are some niggles.

I absolutely LOVE the Bold 9780′s top-left screen-lock button. I use that more than everything. I really like the functionality. I like how it’s positioned. On the 9900, they’ve done away with this. There’s still a button — it’s on the top in the centre now. On pressing it, I sometimes involuntarily press the other side buttons, especially the camera button. Annoying. Over the past week or so it’s become less of a problem as I’ve adjusted.

The battery… It feels slightly less powerful than the last version of the Bold. I’m frequently hitting the amber empty sign by 9pm and 10pm — from a full charge that morning. So I am charging it a little more often. However I am pleased to say that I’ve not had it completely switch off. I’m just bothered by the sight of the amber/red battery warning. I have an aversion to it. Now I should point out that I’ve a few third party apps running including SmrtGuard, Google Mail and Google Sync – they will be having an affect. I think it’s fair to point out that battery is becoming an irrelevance nowadays, much to my annoyance. Any smartphone you’d care to mention is lucky if it gets through a full business day of usage. It’s not a RIM thing. It’s an industry thing.

I’m not particularly impressed with the camera. Like almost any smartphone out there, it’s nothing to write home about. I won’t bore you with the megapixels. It’s irrelevant. The pictures are ‘ok’. They’re par for the course. Expect decent photos but no more. The close-up option, for example, was laughably rubbish. It’s like the RIM engineers got to this point and didn’t go any further. I was trying to take a picture of a receipt and the camera simply wasn’t having it. I eventually had to use the touch-to-focus option on my iPhone 4 instead. So — don’t expect miracles.

There’s also an argument to say that the lack of ‘apps’ is a bit of a shortcoming. I’m half sold on this. Half. I do carry around an iPhone 4 precisely because of the app and media experience. However there’s a reason my Bold is my primary phone — messaging. Fundamentally, the number one app for me is messaging (email/Twitter/IM). Everything else is there — I use Google Maps a lot. Google Sync for my address book. BeReader to keep up with Google Reader. The Gmail app to access my back archive of mail across multiple accounts. Oh, and Evernote. I don’t miss the 400,000 other apps on the Bold because I use the primary function — messaging — so much.

The Package
As a package though, the Bold 9900 is simply magnificent.

If you’re a serious user of messaging functionality, definitely consider this device. I haven’t written about the email experience on the Bold because it’s not relevant — we all know RIM has this stuff down pat, nothing else comes close.

This is the smart workhorse. This is the machine you need to get shit done. If your primary need is to piss about with Angry Birds on the train home, then yeah, maybe you should be buying a £99 Android or a free iPhone 4. But if you’re like me — coming out of the office and wanting to race through your personal and work mail fast and get stuff sorted, seriously think about the new Bold.

If you’re a business person of some stature (and perhaps forced to carry a BlackBerry) make sure it’s the Bold. Do not accept anything else. Well, maybe the Torch if you like the slidey-keyboard. (I’ll be having a look at the new Torch shortly).

The recently launched Curves are nice, but if you’re a reader of Mobile Industry Review, yours should be the Bold 9900.

Accept nothing less!

Right then: What do you think? Are you with me?

I think it’s time we — as an industry — took a step back and put some rather outlandish and ridiculous proposed strategies to bed.

Most arguments have centred around the ‘youths’ or looters using what appears in some cases to be a systematic approach — with their communications powered by BlackBerry Messenger (“BBM”).

It’s no surprise that the medium of BBM is involved in some way with the London Riots — in exactly the same way the telephone, SMS and even YouTube are involved. BBM enables unlimited super-fast person-to-person communications — that is, you don’t need to pay per message. SMS, although highly popular, requires a per-message charge (or the using of a bundle) so it’s less appealing.

Let’s be clear: BlackBerry is popular with the youth of the UK. Indeed, in June 2011, GfK Retail reported that BlackBerry was the number one smartphone vendor in the UK (for contract and prepay). Not for nothing is the BlackBerry Curve 8520 the best selling prepay phone (note: “phone”, not “smartphone”!) in the UK in June.

Last night, though, I was alarmed to see a raft of tweets claiming BBM was going to be shut down. Somebody re-tweeted this:

@cr So BBM is to be turned off in LDN from 7pm. Great idea if you ask me. #LondonRiots

I immediately wrote back to @cr, asking what the source was. I got no reply.

Just as I was thinking of phoning up Tom or Matt at RIM UK to check, I saw this message from the FT’s Tim Bradshaw:

@tim BlackBerry-maker RIM says that it has NO plans to shut down BBM this evening, contrary to rumours. #londonriots

Tim followed up to an enquiry pointing out he’d spoken to the company’s in-house PR. That was good enough for me.

The inaccurate rumours of BBM being switched off didn’t help the situation last night, with many casual observes agreeing that, this sounded like a rather good idea. Clearly, the looters weren’t glued to their phones as they tried to rip flatscreen TVs off the wall of the Ladbrokes betting shop in Clapham. It’s not as is BBM was uber-critical to their entire ‘plan’.

Lots of young people have BlackBerries. If you’ve got BBM (which anyone with a BlackBerry automatically gets), you can have continuous IM-style conversations with friends all over the world, or all over the city. You can also participate in large group chats. The system — like any other social medium — is ideal for organising disparate groups of people. In the case of the London Riots, it would certainly make sense for some segments of the looters to use the medium of BBM to stay connected.

“So ban it!”

“Switch it off!”

“Nip it in the bud!”

That’s the kind of calls I’ve been hearing recently. If you’re a draconian dictator then, yes. Switch it off. Disable your population’s ability to communicate.

But here in the United Kingdom, absolutely not.

RIM shouldn’t be getting it in the neck for the United Kingdom’s inability to manage law and order.

Last night, by all accounts, thousands of looters ransacked, destroyed and mugged with impunity. I documented this last night. In that post I included a YouTube video showing this taking place. I also speculated that, yes, BBM would be a brilliant platform for managing your looting operations.

This doesn’t mean we should be switching BlackBerry Services off across the UK in response.

Absolutely not.

Instead the authorities should be using all resources at their disposal to prevent further outbreak on violence. Disabling BBM and forcing interested looters and rioters to use other means of communication isn’t the answer. Switching off the mobile networks, likewise, is most certainly not the answer.

Policing the streets properly, is the answer.

Getting the Army out to crush — and I do mean crush — the mini insurrections outside Carphone Warehouse might well be necessary. Letting these looters get on with it at their convenience simply cannot be an option.

The country won’t tolerate continued lawlessness on the scale we saw last night. I have confidence that the authorities understand this and will adjust their actions tonight accordingly.

Meantime, I’d like to draw your attention to this rather useful post from Simon Bisson over at ZDNet UK. Simon writes about the Regulatory of Investigatory Powers section 49 (and 54) — something we should consider carefully when folk are screaming about switching off BBM. This is a particularly good section from Simon:

It’s time to put my speculation hat on and make a few educated guesses about just what’s going on, having built and run the tech side of a national ISP, and having dealt with law enforcement relationships when I worked on one of the largest web mail services.

Certainly if I was the intelligence branch of the Metropolitan Police I would have sent someone over to RIM’s UK offices as soon as it was confirmed that BBM messages had been one of the tools rioters had used, with a signed Regulatory of Investigatory Powers section 49 letter. RIM would be required to hand over message data to the police, allowing them to use traffic analysis to show the spread of messages and between which BlackBerry PINs. There’d be no need for RIM to unencrypt data – the traffic patterns would be all the police needed to track down message sources and the devices associated with those messages.

Once the police know what devices to track there’ll be another batch of RIPA letters turning up at mobile operators across the UK, asking for location data. It’s all standard procedure for an intelligence-led modern police operation. The ISPs and operators will have procedures in place, and may well have started data collection as soon as the trouble began in Tottenham on Saturday.

So there we go.

I agree with Simon.

BBM data could well be a phenomenally useful source of information for the authorities. Good news.

So please, enough about switching BBM off.

Here is the video:

Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced plans to launch 5 new BlackBerry® smartphones based on the BlackBerry® 7 Operating System (OS). RIM, in conjunction with carriers and distribution partners around the world, is rolling out two new BlackBerry® Bold™ models and three new BlackBerry® Torch™ models, all running the powerful new BlackBerry® 7 OS.

The launch of this family of handsets will be RIM’s largest global launch ever and more than 225 carriers and distribution partners have already commenced or completed over 500 certification programs for these 5 new handsets.

Featuring RIM’s next generation of hardware and software platforms, these five new BlackBerry 7 based smartphones offer users a variety of designs to choose from and deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity.

The new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and 9930 are RIM’s thinnest smartphones ever, each offering a large keyboard and brilliant touch display. The new BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810 smartphone builds on the popularity of the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 and combines a large touch display with a convenient slide-out keyboard. The BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 and 9860 introduce an all-new, all-touch design featuring the largest display on a BlackBerry® smartphone to date.

“This is the largest global launch of BlackBerry smartphones in our history,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO of Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry solution offers a best-in-class mobile communications experience that customers love and we think they will be thrilled by the faster performance, enhanced browsing and richer multimedia delivered by these powerful new BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Torch smartphones.”

Next-Generation BlackBerry 7 OS
BlackBerry 7 introduces a next generation BlackBerry browser with a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience that is among the best in the industry. Combining the dramatically improved performance of the advanced WebKit browser engine together with the powerful hardware enhancements found in the BlackBerry 7 based smartphones delivers browsing results that are up to 40% faster than BlackBerry® 6 based smartphones and up to 100% faster than BlackBerry® 5 based smartphones*. Additional enhancements to this next generation BlackBerry browser have also optimized zooming and panning for smoother web navigation and optimized HTML5 performance for incredible gaming and video experiences.

RIM’s new BlackBerry 7 based smartphones also feature Liquid GraphicsTM technology, with each smartphone combining a dedicated high-performance graphics processor with a blazingly fast CPU and stunning high resolution display to deliver a highly responsive touch interface with incredibly fast and smooth graphics.

In addition, BlackBerry 7 based smartphones continue the tradition of delivering the world’s best mobile communications experience with a highly refined and integrated suite of phone, email, messaging and social apps to keep users connected and productive throughout the day. Recent enhancements include the newest release of BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger) which now extends the real time BBM experience to a range of other apps (see separate announcement on July 28, 2011). The updated Social Feeds (2.0) app has been extended to capture updates from media, podcasts, and favorites all in one consolidated view. The new Facebook® for BlackBerry smartphones (2.0) app introduces features like Facebook chat and BBM integration that makes it easier for users to connect with their Facebook friends in real time.

BlackBerry 7 OS also includes a number of other pre-loaded applications and integrated functionality for increased productivity and collaboration right out of the box. The Premium version of Documents To Go is now included free of charge, offering users powerful document editing features as well as a native PDF document viewer. BlackBerry® Protect is also pre-loaded**, offering customers the peace of mind that personal data can be backed up and secured in the cloud. BlackBerry® Balance (announced May 2, 2011) is now integrated in BlackBerry 7, allowing users to enjoy the full BlackBerry smartphone experience for both work and personal purposes without compromising the IT department’s need for advanced security and IT controls. And further, the popular universal search capability has been enhanced with support for voice-activated search, so users can now simply speak to begin searching their device and the web for information.

A New Performance Driven Platform
RIM’s line up of next generation BlackBerry smartphones are built on a new performance driven platform powered by the latest BlackBerry software and hardware. In addition to supporting the new BlackBerry 7 OS, each smartphone also features a range of powerful hardware enhancements including a 1.2 GHz processor, HD video recording, 24-bit high resolution graphics, and advanced sensors enabling new augmented reality applications such as Wikitude that can be seamlessly integrated with BBM 6 – all designed to deliver the ultimate in communications, multimedia and productivity for users around the world.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones with Touch Display and Keyboard

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 series is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet (at only 10.5mm) and the first to offer the perfect union of a high performance keyboard and touch display integrated within the iconic BlackBerry Bold design. The new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 are also the first BlackBerry smartphones to include built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications), a new technology that is enabling many new and exciting capabilities, including the ability to pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone. Distinguished by its beautiful design, amazingly effective keyboard and brilliant touch display, the BlackBerry Bold 9900 series is crafted with premium materials including a brushed stainless steel frame that puts the finishing touch on a truly outstanding smartphone.

BlackBerry Torch 9810 Smartphone with Touch Display and Slide-Out Keyboard
Building on the popular design of the BlackBerry Torch 9800, the new BlackBerry Torch 9810 is faster and more fluid with high performance hardware features and the new BlackBerry 7 OS delivering an enhanced multimedia experience. Featuring a large 3.2”, high resolution touch display and a distinctive BlackBerry keyboard that easily slides out to allow faster typing, the BlackBerry Torch 9810 truly delivers the best of both worlds.

All-Touch BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 Smartphones

The BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphones offer the fast, fluid BlackBerry 7 experience in a stylish new all-touch design. With a spectacular new 3.7” display, the largest ever on a BlackBerry smartphone, the new all-touch BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphones are optimized for displaying web pages, photos, videos, and powerful gaming experiences and still deliver the real-time communication and collaboration experience loved by millions of BlackBerry smartphone users around the world.

Availability

The next generation of BlackBerry smartphones will begin to be available from carriers around the world starting later this month. Availability dates for specific devices from specific carriers will be announced in conjunction with RIM’s partners.

Additional Information
For additional information please visit www.blackberry.com

I have finally decided to try out hosted BES (“BlackBerry Exchange Server”) for my BlackBerry.

I’ve tolerated the BlackBerry Gmail Plugin for a few years and whilst it was a blessing back in 2008 or whenever it was made available, it’s a total arse that it doesn’t sync properly (delete on the BlackBerry and it doesn’t delete on your main account… truly annoying).

Since I use Google Apps, one solution is proper BES integration. I found Exchange My Mail‘s BES service for Google Apps a few weeks ago but it’s only this evening that I thought I should give it a go.

Theoretically this solution will give me proper calendaring, contacts and email sync. I actually only need the email sync part of it. The Google Sync app for BlackBerry works fine (and uses a different Apps account).

Anyway, I thought it was worth kicking the tyres.

I signed up for an account just now — free for 30 days — and it was setup and ready on their end within 10 minutes. Very impressive indeed.

I now need to authorise the service via Google Apps and, theoretically, that’ll be it ready to use.

We shall see.. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Have you done anything similar? I’d welcome your perspective.

RIM’s having a few challenges at the moment, particularly when it comes to keeping the faithful in line. One reader emailed Kevin to ask for some action, especially over a misleading Tweet from BlackBerry about new devices. The reader concludes thus:

I strongly feel that you [Kevin] owe all of us an article on this subject. Something direct and to the point, without beating around the bush. Again, it’s not RIM bashing, it’s accurate reporting.

Kevin responds in-depth and finishes with this point:

Maybe the solution here is to get me on RIM’s Board of Directors at next year’s AGM… I’ll make sure as a company RIM does a better job on this type of stuff! Do you own a bunch of shares by chance? Let’s vote me in!

via Dear CrackBerry: Give it to us Straight! | CrackBerry.com.

Now then.

I have a policy on not owning any shares in any publicly traded companies in the mobile industry. But you know what, in this case, I’d buy a few RIM shares so that next year, at the AGM, I could vote Kevin on to the board. Not only would this be a flipping brilliant thing to do anyway, it would give Kevin tremendous insight into the operations of the company. It might genuinely help out BlackBerry too.

How could this be achieved at the AGM? Well it’s simple. CrackBerry has about a billion highly-passionate, highly-engaged readers. If each of them bought a few shares, one would imagine it would be reasonably straight-forward to table a question/motion. I don’t know, I’d need to do some investigating. Obviously I’d imagine a majority of shareholders would need to vote in favour. That might not be far to reach though.

Interesting times, interesting times. Good luck Kevin!

The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification means that the PlayBook is secure enough for government use. Of course, not having any standalone communications apps certainly might help the PlayBook get that certification.

via Mobileburn: BlackBerry PlayBook is first tablet certified by the feds.

Pow! @BlackBerry continues momentum across EMEA with 1 Million+ new subscribers added in less than 3 weeks.

This is good reminder that the company is still adding subscribers in sizeable amounts, especially in EMEA.

Here’s a note from Patrick Spence, top man in Europe at RIM. [I've put some key points in bold]

Thank you to the over one million new customers who have joined the BlackBerry community across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in the last three weeks alone. We’re excited by the continued momentum we’re experiencing across EMEA, and are appreciative of the amazing efforts of our application developer partners, our operator partners, our retail partners, and our distributor partners who have helped us make this happen. BlackBerry continues to be the number one smartphone brand in a number of our markets, including the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK – where we also remain the number one smartphone vendor by total unit sales, and the number one prepay smartphone vendor. Our smartphones including the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Curve also top the sales lists in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia and we recently announced RIM’s international revenue for the first quarter had grown 67% year on year. Here in EMEA, we remain focused on enhancing the BlackBerry experience for existing customers, and welcoming more and more people to the BlackBerry community every single day.

Now then, the next time someone waves their hand at you commenting, “RIM is dead,” during a mobile development discussion, send them this post or remind them that RIM is still adding millions of new customers.

I burst out laughing when I saw this poster at Manchester Piccadilly Station last night. There’s a load of them spread out across the concourse. I know the photo is particularly bad because of a rather bright light in the way — sorry — however I wanted to capture it for posterity.

The poster reads: “Yeah. You should have waited.” in big big bold blue text, with, “Available from 16 June” underneath.

Smart.

I very much like the bold approach!

Of course since the PlayBook has a file system, the whole thing works very well indeed. You can easily download files on to your device then re-upload as you wish.

The client is free — but it looks like there’s a ‘Plus’ premium version coming soon. I think I’ll definitely be buying that one.

Have a quick look of BlueBox working with this video I made:

You can — provided your luck holds — get yourself a brand new BlackBerry PlayBook today in the United Kingdom. Currys, Dixons, PC World, Carphone Warehouse, Insight UK and Phones4U will all be making the tablet available this morning. As yet I haven’t seen any PlayBooks ‘in the wild’ in London but after today, I’m hoping to begin seeing a few around.

You can use this link at Carphone Warehouse to check stock and place an order.

Good hunting!

Now then, if you’re in the following countries, look out — the chances are the PlayBook has already launched or is about to launch:

UK
Netherlands
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Hong Kong
Australia
Venezuela
Spain
Germany
UAE
Singapore
Mexico
France
Italy
India
Indonesia
Colombia

The BlackBerry PlayBook will hit the UK marketplace next Thursday (16th June) with prices starting at £399 for the 16GB version. You’ll be able to pick one up from Dixons, Currys, PC World, Carphone Warehouse, Insight UK and Phones4U.

There have been quite a few US/North American sales figures bandied about recently — I remember seeing a figure of 250,000 PlayBooks shipped in the first month. We’ll need to wait for RIM to confirm figures. Meanwhile I’m excited to see how the PlayBook will fare in the UK marketplace. I think it should get a good reception and I’m especially interested to see if some of the usual suspects (law firms, banks, financial houses) will take a close look.

Bring it on!

In a noisy (and slightly longer than normal) Episode 5 recorded ‘on the go’ in a hotel back-room, we argue about Blackberry… a lot.

Well… Ben and I argue. Rafe plays peacemaker. We ‘discuss‘:

• What was announced at Blackberry World.
• The platform changes that Blackberry is going through.
• The RIM / Microsoft partnership.
• The Playbook tablet device.
• The new QNX operating system used on the Playbook and destined for phones.
• What Blackberry should (and shouldn’t do).
• How right (and wrong) we think they’re getting it.

Episode 5 is also available on Soundcloud.

There are lots of ways to follow the podcast or you can subscribe using iTunes and other popular services.