“This is not a toy; it’s a mobile
computing and production tool.”
Quote from BlackBerry’s Senior Manager of Portfolio
Management in Latin America Maria Alejandra Perez-Rincon on October 28th
2012 in the Jamaica Observer
Despite
media mutterings to the contrary, RIM (Research in Motion) is not completely
dead.
Granted,
within the US of A, the BB is now a distant memory according to the statistics
of ComScore as noted in the article “Latest
Smartphone stats: Apple gaining ground on Samsung”,
published October 2, 2012 11:23 AM PDT by Zack Whittaker, CNET News;
stats worthy of their own analysis article! But RIM, the company that’s near
Death’s Door, is poised to make a comeback.
This
as they’ve announced the upcoming Global Launch of Blackberry OS 10 on January
30th 2013AD sporting some much improved hardware on its two (2) new Smartphone
offerings as reported by CNET Reporter Roger Cheng in “BlackBerry
10 will launch on January 30, RIM says”, published November
12, 2012 4:22 AM PST by Roger Cheng, CNET
News
and “RIM
to launch BlackBerry 10 on Jan 30”, published Monday,
November 12, 2012 10:04 AM, The
Jamaica Observer.
February
2013AD seems to be the month that the new gear with the super-secure Blackberry
OS (actually QNX OS!) from the Ontario, Canada Telecom Equiptment maker will be
in the hands of many after the Global Launch as stated in the article “First
BlackBerry 10 smartphones available in February - report”,
published November 13, 2012 2:24 PM PST by Roger Cheng, CNET News.
RIM’s
Blackberry 10 OS and as-yet named Smartphone already has US and Canadian FIPS
(Federal Information Publishing Standard) 140-2 Certification. Certification
which neither Apple nor Google Android smartphones, despite their popularity
with the masses, have ever been able to achieve as noted in “BlackBerry
10 wins U.S. security clearance ahead of launch”,
published November 8, 2012 1:59 AM PST by Zack Whittaker, CNET News.
Simply
put, FIPS 140-2 Certification means heavy encryption for BB Messenger and email
that even the Telecom Providers themselves cannot crack, save for getting a
hold of your Blackberry. In a world where Privacy is at a premium and Big
Brother is always watching, this is a welcome breath of fresh air in the Smartphone
community: a Smartphone certified to be secure and private and never jail
broken.
So
highly rated is the FIPS 140-20 Certification that the members of the SS
(Secret Service) i.e. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and US and Canadian
Government Officials can use the RIM’s Smartphone for super secure, heavily
encrypted communications over Public Telecom Provider Networks.
For
those of you folks with rather short memories, this is the same legendary
Encryption that made the BB so secure that even India and Saudi Arabia banned
them in August 2010 as noted in my blog
article entitled “BlackBerry
and India - Shiva the Destroyer”. The fear of terrorists having access to super
secure communications is well founded and Blackberry had to make concessions in
order to continue having the Saudi Arabian Government as a customer.
Already,
as part of their return to fighting form, the new Smartphone with its
Blackberry 10 OS, which is really the QNX OS, is currently with fifty (50)
Telecom Providers as stated in the article “RIM:
Over 50 carriers testing BlackBerry 10 now”, published
October 31, 2012 11:25 AM PDT by Roger Cheng, CNET News. This is for testing and certification as part
of the preparation for a Global Launch in 2013AD!
A
Worldwide bid to gain approval of the respective Governments to launch in their
respective markets, desirous of a super-secure Work Tool and communication
Smartphone that guarantees privacy but fearful of the poor security on Apple
iPhones and Google Android Phones. A definitive replay of The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King (2003) for Blackberry!
This
will be the selling point to Governments, Corporate and Enterprise for the new
Blackberry 10 OS and the pair of Smartphone as RIM rises from the dead like
Lazarus.
A
nearly bankrupt company in May 2012 thanks to its arrogance due to not
adjusting to the shifting tastes within the Corporate and Enterprise World as
reported in my blog
article entitled “RIM
filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy - The Last of the Mohicans Blackberry as Android
Borne Supremacy Worldwide Continues”, Blackberry 10 OS marks a serious turning point
for the Blackberry brand and RIM.
Leadership
of the new CEO Thorsten Heins is behind this new direction towards securing a
Third spot placing in Global Smartphone sales in a bold appeal to Developers to
stick with them as noted in “RIM
CEO Heins to developers: We have a 'clear shot' at No. 3”,
published September 25, 2012 12:41 PM PDT, by Casey Newton, CNET News.
CEO
Thorsten Heins has been CEO from January 2012, after the RIM Board had pushed co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim
Balsillie aside due to the company’s declining performance. The
accelerated hardware had already been revealed earlier in October 2012 and it’s
definitely geared to the Blackberry Crowd looking for a Blackberry. It has some
of the styling of its more dominant Smartphone rivals yet is able to get work
done securely.
But
as far back as the Fourth Quarter of 2011, RIM had revealed the possible
hardware direction with their somewhat sub-par 1.2 GHz Processor smartphones
running the super-secure QNX OS in my
blog article entitled
“RIM
Blackberry steps up to 1.2GHz and Faster Browser - QNX and Qualcomm Voyage of
the Dawn Treader”.
The
above quote from BlackBerry’s
Senior Manager of Portfolio Management in Latin America Maria Alejandra
Perez-Rincon on October 28th 2012 in the Jamaica Observer article “RIM takes aim at rivals with
BlackBerry 10”,
published Sunday, October 28, 2012 BY PAUL RODGERS Business Editor, The
Jamaica Observer
pretty much sums up RIM’s stance on its smartphones competitors: they’re competitors
smartphones are toys, not work tools as is the new Blackberry 10, which is
really the QNX OS.
So taking these “toys” and making
them useful productivity tools is obviously the focus of RIM; it seems they’re
basically hedging their comeback on the Corporate and Enterprise World already
used to the Blackberry falling in love with them again.
Features such as:
1. An improved Calendar Organizer
2. Faster Quad-Core Processor
3. 1080p Retina Display from SHARP as
noted in my
blog article entitled “SHARP and JDI making 5-inch 1080p
Smartphone Screens - Here Comes the
Boom as 1080p Screens, Quad-Core the
next Big Thing for Apple iPhone”
4. The ability to (gasp!) finally use
the Web Browser and access the full Internet
5. Improved 8 Megapixel Camera (here’s
hoping!!)
6. Camera tech that can fix you photos
post-capture
7. Real-Time Voice Translation as
explained in my
blog article entitled
“NTT DoCoMo introduces Free Real-Time
Language Translation App - A Siri-esque Looper for Increased Business
International Calling and Local Advertising”
8. Native Support for Microsoft
Office
9. Apps from Google Play Store
certified as Secure enough to work in the QNX OS
10. Built into the keyboard with
Multilingual support and autocorrect
11. Improved Battery life (1 week on a
single charge!)
All while getting productive work
done and simple enough with a Keyboard option to operate!
These improvements on the new version
the Blackberry hardware that’ll be running Blackberry OS 10 are all work
related. A trade in program to allow persons to purchase the new Blackberry at
a reduced prices once you hand in your old Blackberry would certainly make the
transition that much easier, rewarding the Blackberry faithful for their
loyalty!
RIM, it seemed, was taking its time
to observe the new trend brought upon the market by the Apple iPhone in 2007.
RIM’s R&D have basically concluded that now in 2013AD, some six (6) year
on, the Corporate and Enterprise World want to have some of the styling that
its Smartphone rivals possess as per the Geezam blog article entitled “30% Blackberry Blackout by Corporate and Enterprise – Bring
Your Favourite Gear”
but with significantly better security.
The novelty of a responsive
Capacitive Touch Screen been seen by Blackberry merely a hardware upgrade.
Blackberry has taken its cue from its Corporate and Business partner’s demands
for Blackberry as suggested by the quote from RIM's Regional Manager for Latin
America and the Caribbean, Wes Nicol: “BlackBerry 10 has been specifically
designed for BlackBerry People”.
The
CEO Thorsten Heins also echoes this sentiment of making a Smartphone for the
Blackberry Crowd, very much still a force in Jamaica and the Caribbean, quote:
“Thanks to our strong partnerships
with global carriers and a growing ecosystem of developers, we believe our
customers will have the best experience possible with BlackBerry 10. We are
looking forward to getting BlackBerry 10 in the hands of our customers around
the world.”
Indeed, a theme akin to Apple and
its Apple iPhone for its iSheep as Apple Fanboys are sometimes called. In a
way, Blackberry 10 OS and the new smartphones are for the true devotees of
Blackberry aka Black Sheep who’ve been pining away for a Smartphone they can be
proud to be seen in the US in Public.
Strangely enough, thanks to their
mass rejection in the US, the Developing World Countries such a Latin American
and the Caribbean, especially in Jamaica, love the Blackberry to bits for its
BB Messenger and solid yet simple design as noted in my Geezam
blog article entitled “Android smartphones may be king in
2015AD, but RIM Blackberry quality shines”.
Blackberry, to their credit, despite
their financial troubles, is being defended by the likes of Barack Obama,
President of the United States of America who totes about with his Blackberry
everywhere and on becoming President had famously refused to relieve himself of
is as noted in
“Obama's BlackBerry
brings personal safety risks”, published February 12, 2009 7:27 AM PST by
Chris Soghoian, CNET News.
CBS Newscaster and long-time
Blackberry user Bob Schieffer offers an admonition to BB users to keep their
chin up as suggested in the article “A cure for BlackBerry owners who
feel like black sheep”,
published October 21, 2012 10:22 AM PDT by Steven Musil, CNET
News.
One is grudgingly inclined to agree,
as even the newly minted Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 smartphones are more geared
towards productive with Microsoft Word installed and twinned (synchable) with
the now red hot Microsoft Surface Tablet as stated in my
blog
article entitled “Nokia launches the Lumia 820 and 920
- Lumia prostituting with the Microsoft Surface Tablet in a Resident Evil
Retribution 3D”.
Even the GOJ (Government of Jamaica)
under the guidance of Minister of Science, Technology Energy and Mining Phillip
Paulwell is opting to possibly go with the solution on offer by Microsoft in
the form of their Microsoft Tablet and Nokia Lumia smartphones as
prognosticated in my blog
article entitled “GOJ Parliamentarians upgraded to
Microsoft Surface Tablets and GovNET Wide Area Network - Minister Paulwell
efforts to reduce paper may accelerate Jamaican Tablet Adoption”.
This common theme of productive work
is an indication that the older Managers (ages 46 to 90) in the Corporate World
are slowly coming around towards the new trend among its younger Generation X
(29 to 45) Middle Management towards smartphones and Tablets. Millennial
(18-28), however, are really the ones that are adopting the Smartphone and
Tablet trend purely for on-the-go Entertainment reasons.
This is a trend I’ve observed among
the staff here at ACCENT Marketing Limited located in the Baxter Building in
New Kingston as observed in my blog
article entitled “Blackberry
popularity wanes as Jamaicans go smartphones - Android and Apple's Smartphone
Revolution”. ACCENT
Marketing Limited staff is a mixture of Generation X (29 to 45) Middle
Management and TES (Technical Engagement Specialists) who are mostly Millennial
(18-28).
This prompted me to make the
connection with the OUR (Office of Utility Regulation) Statistic that indicates
a 138% increase in Wired and Wireless Broadband Internet usage as stated in my
blog
article entitled “OUR Telecom Provider Stats indicate
JA$14 billion profit for Second Quarter of 2011 - Telecom Providers Stacking up
all Faces on the Argo Video Calling and VoIP on smartphones”. These statistics compare the
Second Quarter of 2011 is compared to the Second Quarter of 2010.
So will the newly minted as yet
named smartphone(s) with the Spy-grade Blackberry 10 OS from RIM be a hit where
Blackberry 7 OS failed?
If they have the above plus an
improved Apps Store and they make a solid splash at CES 2012, then success is
already in the oven baking. Hopefully along with a new Blackberry OS 10 and
improved hardware, they will also debut a new Tablet also based on QNX but
superior to the failed as opined in my Geezam blog article entitled “RIM’s PlayBook needs to become a
Real Tablet”.
The strength of their QNX OS allowed
them to pass muster with the US and Canadian Government with the FIPS 140-20
Certification. FIPS 140-20 Certification
is a bold statement; it says RIM’s Blackberry 10 OS has a super secure Smartphone
with Privacy guaranteed in a World gone Social Networking. Approval by Telecom Providers worldwide is now the next hurdle to
be breached in a bid for The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
and to regain Corporate
and Enterprise approval.
BlackBerry’s Senior Manager of
Portfolio Management in Latin America Maria Alejandra Perez-Rincon is defiant
in her proclamation: This is NOT a toy; this is The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)! All the new Blackberry 10 OS and au pair of smartphones, which makes now
needs is a solid Tablet design, just like the Microsoft Surface and the Nokia
Lumia series of smartphones.
At that point, a solid comeback with
the Corporate and Enterprise World and the fickle Mass Market will, like Black
Sheep, surely follow.
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