My Blackberry is not Working

BlackPad Becomes A Playbook

Tablets will be somewhat confusing for many today as we all have heard or seen the iPad but now are being bombarded with competitive offers? What will differntuate one from another? Who will prevail? Are Apple the winners long term or merely the first to market?

RIM who produce the Blackberry has now announced its Blackpad or as its called Playbook.



They clearly still owns the corporate smartphone market with some 39% share in the US, so will their Playbook be adopted and dominate in a market it is familiar with and where it enjoys a solid reputation. We know many corporates that carry two phones today will this make one redundant and will corporates embrace it as a replacement notebook and a must have for the businessman on the move?

The Playbook will have a 7” screen with front and rear facing cameras to enable video conferencing. It will have Bluetooth and wi-fi. It will have no 3G capabilities but will enable a data connection to 3G networks by tethering to a Blackberry smartphone. It wil like everybody but Apple run Flash. It will have micro-HDMI and micro-usb ports.

However, it will not use the new Blackberry OS 6 operating system but QNX software, which was recently acquired by RIM. The new QNX system is designed specifically for the tablet size computer and will avoid any issues of adjustment from a smartphone OS to the tablet platform. The downside is that it is another operating system and another app barrier for some.

RIM expects to ship the device to corporate customers and developers in October and be fully available in early 2011. But the price remains under wraps and in a congested market may be an issue.

The market now includes or declared offers from Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HTC, Acer, Google, Microsoft and Cisco. Will the app, or the technology, the connectivity, the package, the operating system or the price decide the winners and losers? We still believe that the race win be between Apple and Google and open and closed approaches. The big loser is likely to be Microsoft whose focus is still rooted to the PC World.

India: Control versus Commerce, Terror versus Traffic

It makes us wonder if India really wants to be a digital powerhouse. First the bring back tax on IT which could add a hefty 25% on all that is digital, then it turned its focus on Blackberry and now is demanding "access to everything". They want "any company with a telecoms network should be accessible". It could be Google or Skype next and you can’t rule out government access to any virtual private networks.

Increased fears of terrorism is one thing, but chopping the legs from under the industry that make its growth today, is another.

Blackberry has been given 60 days to come up with a way to open up its data to Indian law enforcement authorities and is reported to be setting up a server in India as part of the solution. Some cynics would suggest the 60 delay is so not to upset the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October in a country that has 1.1 million customers.

Its goingto be interesting to see who follows the Indian lead and whether the new measures and tax issues simply move the business further offshore.

Blackberry and that Blackhole

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the first country to propose a block on the Blackberry device and they were followed by Lebanon, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Last month it was Saudi Arabia that held the gun to RIM’s (Blackberry) head and the service was first cut and then was brought back again. Now India has given RIM a deadline of 31 August to give the government access to all of its services or face being shut down.

"RIM maintains, ‘a consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific countries.’ They believe that their devices and network is being unfairly singled out by foreign governments out to score political points. However the row is not going away and is the latest in a long running dispute between RIM and international governments.

With over one million Blackberry users in India and its position as an emerging economic powerhouse, this may be one fight RIM would want to avoid. What is clear is that in the current climate of global terrorist threats, many governments may now jump on the bandwagon. The issue is whether RIM can be seen to be placating these government demands whilst still continuing to hold to its promise of confidentiality to its customers.

Maybe it’s a case of dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.

Blackberry Enters a Blackhole?

Research in Motion (RIM) continues to attempt to fight off Apple and Android and retain its position as the must have for all business folk and the alternative for all consumers. Ask those business folk who have two phones, one for private use and the company Blackberry. However the recent shift in power to these two relatively new comers has forced many to start to choose one over two.



As Blackberies continue to be launched, the latest being the BlackBerry Torch 9800 which has a touch screen and slide-out keyboard, as well as a faster Web browser and launches in the U.S. on Aug. 12. Somehow one is reminded of technologies which were great in their day but fundamentally staered from the wrong place for today’s market. Email is so simple on the iPhone or Android it begs the question why a Blackberry counts? According to research firm Gartner, RIM's market share dropped 14% to 41.4% in the first quarter from a year ago. Importantly, BlackBerry only has a fraction of the apps available to the iPhone or Android devices and in today’s Appworld that can be a big negative. RIM are now opening up the platform and providing easrier to use tools for developers but is it too late?

Now comes the real bad news that the European Union Commission have ditched their Blackberrys in favour of devices from Apple and HTC (Android). Saudi Arabia, who have some 700,000 Blackberry users, has also ordered a ban of the services starting Friday and the United Arab Emirates, India and other countries for greater access to the encrypted information sent by BlackBerry devices. The U.A.E. will prohibit most BlackBerry services starting Oct. 11.

The moves are over concerns on RIM's message encryption security which is considered by some governments and agencies as too tight and prohibit them from being able to spy on its users. RIM says it can't give access to encrypted data and doesn't give any one government special treatment. "Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded," However, US law enforcement officials told Reuters that they can "tap into emails and other conversations" conducted through Blackberrys, just as long as they have the appropriate court order.

Wattpad Pulled From Blackberry App Store

How are sites such as Wattpad and Scribd to be controlled? Today they continue to work within DMCA and some would say hide behind the act. Anybody can literally upload anything and only when an objection from the copyright owner is received does it get taken down. By then its been read several hundred times and copied by many. Tomorrow it turns up under another name and the process starts all over again.

Today we hear from several sources that the Wattpad application has been withdrawn from the RIM service. According to Wireless and Mobile news, ‘the app was pulled by RIM while they are investigating the usage of the app. We are working with the App World team and hope to restore availability soon.’

Whatever the reasoning behind the decision we believe that Apple, RIM and others should look at the document and book sharing apps they are approving and could demand procative action. Publishers should remove all support for sites such as Scribd and Wattpad. That would be a start and would certainly wake the owners of the services up. Afterall they would want to loose those potential marketplaces.

If we cast our memory back to Napster and Kazza there was a recognition it was infringing copyrighted music but it was hard to control and even the introduction of legal downloads didn’t really work. Do we want books to go the same route? Unlike musicians authors can’t go back to merchandising and live performancesdeter. The time to act is now, not tomorrow or maybe wait in hope for legislation.

We respect that there are many legitimate uses of these sites and new writers may wish to promote or give away their content in hope of being seen or read but if we can find files in a matter of a few clicks what is the extent of the problem and what chance has anyone of policing it?

Google Ads and Mobile Apps News

Google is developing technology to connect its TV-ad brokering business to the video world and would allow advertisers to buy adverts across Google TV, which sells on-air commercials; YouTube; and video on other Web sites all through the same interface. Google TV Ads Online, is being tested with a small group of advertisers and is likely to be introduced in the coming months.

Google's vision is obviously aimed at tethering the various platforms to advertisers enabling them to manage and measure their spending across all media. Youtube is trying to increase revenues and their recent spat with the PRS in the UK demonstrates that they need to pay their way.

Some TV ads may not be suited to run before or alongside online video, but there are big strategic opportunities at stake as more consumers watch TV online. YouTube has been looking at making ads through Internet-content on television, such as Apple Inc.'s Apple TV. Traditional TV-ad sellers are now also looking at creating their own online services and ad-selling platforms that compete with YouTube and Google TV.
This week Google also released its Google Mobile Application on RIM's Blackberry smartphones and added voice control on all but the Storm model. Inclyded are al the usual suspects; Google Maps, Gmail, RSS reader etc and all should work on Blackberry's 40 million smartphones.

Google already has Google Mobile Apps for the iPhone, Symbian and for the Android Plaform.

You've Mail Mr President

So the big question is not what Barack Obama do in his first days as the most powerful man on earth but whether he will keep his Blackberry? Some would suggest that the security specialists could be even inventing ways to bring the security of the device into disrepute justto get him of his constant companion.

Then we read that security researchers at iDefense have discovered a couple of potential exposures in the way that BlackBerry Unite and Enterprise servers handle malformed PDF files. The exposures rate 9.3, on a scale of one to 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and potentially enable hackers to inject hostile code onto computer systems running the BlackBerry Attachment Service. The immediate fix - disabling the receipt of PDF attachments - may be a bridge to far for those dependant on seeing all documents but the patches once applied will tough to live with for many organisations, given the widespread use of the document technology.

So what alternatives does the President have to help him keep grounded and in constant communication in this new age?

Another Android has landed

A second Android phone has landed and is making its debut in Australia. It is from Kogan and comes as two models, the Agora Pro and Agora which retail at approximately $256 US and $192 US respectively. Unlike the Pro version the vanilla Agora won't include a camera, Wi-Fi, or GPS. Both have a 624 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, a microSD slot, 3G network, a touch-sensitive 320×240 2.5" screen, Bluetooth, central navigation key, and a backlit full QWERTY keyboard.

So it offers the Blackberry look and feel and the iPhone application promise and is yet another player in this crowed space. The big question is not its appeal to Blackberry users but what it offers over the new Blackberry’s who have already moved into this centre ground?

What it does do however is give Google another vehicle to push in the application wars but with all due respect, Australia is hardly today’s mobile battleground!

Nokia Set To Go After Blackberry

From next month Nokia smartphones will be able to access IBM Lotus Notes corporate email.

Nokia, who dropped plans to develop their own eemail offer and adopt a collaborative approach, has now signed deals with both IBM and Microsoft and believe that they now have close to 90% potential penetration of the corporate email market.

This move will enable Nokia to take on Blackberry-maker RIM in its own back yard. According to Nokia in the third quarter they sold 1.1 million of its new sleek, full-keyboard E71 phones, outselling RIM's Blackberry Bold by five-to-one.

Another Day at the Races

Microsoft and LG have signed a strategic collaboration agreement in R&D, marketing, applications, and services in mobile devices. Samsung Electronics announced on the same day the launch of the domestic version of the Omnia touch screen handset model. This is also based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system and will be available under an exclusive deal later this year.

Both these moves are clearly focused on helping Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system defend itself against Nokia’s Symbian a platform and which is used in two-thirds of smartphones. As we have already reported the remaining contenders are RIM’s Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and Google's Android.

In the same way that DOS versus Windows defined and help shape the PC era and Explora versus Netscape the Web browser initial battles the this ongoing smartphone battle will shape the smartphone market and have a significant impact on digital content and presentation in the digital content era. What will be the key is hard to say but Google certainly has been given a significant boost by its recent settlement.

Aligning digital search and discovery, content delivery and synergy with PCs in an online offer that is unique by its nature is something others will struggle to match. It’s a pity the price was so cheap.

Blackberry Appeal

News that RIM the makers of the email addicts BlackBerry now plans to launch a touch-screen version later this year was reported in the Wall Street Journal. The new touchy device, is named the Thunder and is to be sold exclusively through Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone PLC elsewhere.

Also this week, RIM announced its BlackBerry Bold, a sleek smartphone with a keyboard aimed at its core base of business users and on Wednesday IBM said that it has started selling software allowing Blackberry customers to access its Cognos business intelligence software allowing customers to view real-time analytics on the state of their business on their BlackBerrys. IBM has also introduced programs to allow BlackBerry users to quickly locate and communicate with colleagues with expertise in specific business areas and also to access personalized content from their corporate websites.

Is the Blackberry coming out of the pockets of the business community with its touchy feely iPhone response or merely entrenching itself further into it with its alliance with business information and IBM? We think that we are seeing a device fighting to keep pace with those all around it and desperately seeking to pamper to its core base. It will be interesting to see a touch screen being used on a Blackberry but again maybe not.

Phoney Wars

The long awaited entry of the iPhone into the UK market is now only days away. On 9th of November the fashion icon that has started to redefine mobile phones enters the UK via an exclusive O2 service. Beware, they will be seen everywhere and O2 is bound to be inundated with service transfer enquires. More than 1.4 million units have been sold in the US since it was introduction on 29th June this year.

In an move to stop its resale in the US, Apple has now announced that it will no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and it is reducing the unit limit per person, from five units, down to two. The new policy will ensure that there are enough iPhones for people who are shopping for themselves or buying a gift and discourage unauthorized resellers.

Apple’s other issue is that it estimates that 250K of the iPhones sold to date are to people with multiple iPhones and include those looking to modify, or unlock, the phones so they work on networks other than Apple’s US partner, AT&T. Apple’s attempts to prevent that unlocking activity, include a software update that blocks hacker’s workarounds.



Elsewhere the businessman’s favcourite toy continues to reinvent itself and add more common mobile technology. Blackberry have announced a deal with Omnifone UK to supply BlackBerry users with an unlimited number of music downloads from Omnifone’s MusicStation service. Omnifone’s MusicStation service claims to be able to supply some 10 million songs across 30 countries and a library of tracks from the major producers, such as EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.

They are not stopping there and have also launched Facebook software designed especially for its smartphones. This will enable users to browse Facebook, receive notifications and messages automatically and scroll through them quickly just as they do today with their email. Users can also read and compose Facebook messages.

Where were you when the Blackberries Stopped?

There will be conversations all over the US about the nights the lights went. No not the New York black out but the service outage suffered by Blackberry. On Tuesday night, five million BlackBerry users in the United States were logged off their cherished service. It took 10 long hours before the service was fully resumed. What was the implications of this on the service, its users and the rest of civilisation? After all it was outside normal working hours and resolved before the next working day.

The dependence we all have to email and the blackberry users have to their cherished machines is now clearly beyond working hours. BlackBerry services, shed little light yesterday on what went wrong, releasing a statement that said the “root cause is currently under review.” But it is thought that part of the problem, though, could be the service’s rapid growth: R.I.M. says it has added three million subscribers in the last 12 months, for a total of eight million, in part because of the popularity of its superslim BlackBerry Pearl.

We are left to wonder whether there will be a baby boom in 9 months.