BlackBerry bullish on mobile apps development market

MUMBAI, Nov 13: Research In Motion India (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, has said it sees huge opportunities in mobile applications development in India. The Canada-headquartered RIM currently has over 55 million BlackBerry subscriber accounts, and BlackBerry AppWorld is available in over 100 markets worldwide.

"We see huge opportunity in mobile application development. BlackBerry App World currently has 26,000-odd registered developers from India, against 5,000 two years ago, with the applications numbering over 40,000," according to Annie Mathew, RIM India head of alliance and developer relations.

The company, in a pilot project in Tamil Nadu, is also training engineering students to help them develop applications. "We have commenced pilot project in Tamil Nadu for applications created by youths for youths. We are keen to take this project across the country," Mathew said.

The company has a 70:30 revenue share, where the app developer gets the major chunk. Over 80% of these apps are developed by partners, the rest are in-house. RIM is also working with the government's E-governance projects for health and education, she said.

RIM is launching NFC (near field communications) wireless technology in the country. "We are looking at launching the NFC application here by November-end, which will benefit the domestic healthcare industry immensely. Through NFC, pharma companies will be able to get data from consumers instantly.

RIM sees NFC powering various kinds of apps. For instance, at workplace, NFC could transfer the credentials stored on an ID card to a BlackBerry, allowing user to ditch the card and just carry the phone. It could also let users wirelessly exchange business cards.

iPhone 4S India launch on Nov 25

NEW DELHI, Nov 12: Apple's iPhone 4S will be launched in India on November 25. According to sources Airtel will launch iPhone 4S on November 25. The major stores across India would be open at the time of the launch and people would be able to buy iPhone 4S as soon as clock strikes 00:01 on November 25, sources said.

On Friday Aircel had announced on its Facebook page that it would launch iPhone 4S soon. Though no date was given, in this case too it is almost certain that the carrier would launch iPhone 4S on November 25.

Both the companies have so far, however, not revealed any price for iPhone 4S. The unlocked version of the device sells for $649 in the US and India price for the cheapest iPhone (one with 16GB storage) could be between Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000. Just the way how it happened in the case of earlier iPhone, Aircel and Airtel are likely to offer reverse subsidy for iPhone 4S through discounted call and data plans.

Apple had started selling iPhone 4S on October 14 in the US. While it is similar to iPhone 4 in its design and screen size (3.5 inches), the hardware inside it has seen a significant upgrade.

iPhone 4S is powered by a dual-core processor, has a superior graphics chip and sports an 8 mega-pixel camera. It also has a unique feature called Siri, a virtual assistant, which allows users to carry out functions like setting an alarm through voice commands.

RIM India MD quits

NEW DELHI, Nov 3: At a time when the company is facing hurdles due to security concerns, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion's India Head Frenny Bawa has quit to pursue other interests.

"This is to confirm that Frenny Bawa - RIM's Managing Director for India - is leaving RIM in order to pursue other interests. We appreciate Frenny's past contributions to RIM's growth and we wish her all the best," the company's spokesperson said.

The development comes close on heels of BlackBerry facing flak from scores of subscribers over a recent three-day blackout of services worldwide, including in India.

The company, however, denied any relation between the two.

Further, the company's spokesperson added, "We will keep you posted on Frenny's replacement in due course of time."

Frenny has played a vital role in BlackBerry's global expansion into markets such as the Middle East, Africa and most recently, India.

Based out of Vancouver and reporting to RIM headquarters in Waterloo, Bawa headed RIM's operations in India, while also overseeing business development in the Middle East and Africa.

Prior to joining RIM in 2004, Bawa held several senior-level positions at TELUS, a leading national telecommunications company in Canada.

Last month, scores of BlackBerry users faced problems in accessing e-mail, messenger and other online services on their smartphones for three days due to a core switch failure.

India has close to one million BlackBerry subscribers. For the three months ended August 27, 2011, RIM reported a nearly 59 per cent decline in net income to USD 329 million.

The company had posted a net income of USD 797 million for the June 28-August 27 period last year, RIM had said in a statement.

The Telecom Ministry is asking RIM to come up with a solution for real-time interception of its all enterprise services.

Recently, Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) came up with a solution for real-time interception of its BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) after seeking several extensions of the deadline for nearly a year.

The government had earlier set August 15 as the deadline for RIM, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, to provide the country's security agencies with interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular messenger and corporate e-mail services in readable format.

Samsung introduces new smartphone Galaxy Note

NEW DELHI, Nov 2: Further strengthening its smartphone portfolio in India, Samsung Electronics on Wednesday introduced Galaxy Note that aims at creating a new mobile category with bigger screen, advanced pen-input technology and high-end multimedia capabilities.

Priced at Rs.34,990, Galaxy Note comes with a larger 5.3-inch high-definition touch-screen display. It is equipped with faster 1.4GHz dual-core processor, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system, an advanced pen-input technology ‘Smart Pen', and a long-lasting battery.

Users can also stream videos in real-time or engage with their friends through online gaming platforms, facilitated through Samsung's Game Hub. Samsung has also loaded the device with new and innovative applications.

“Galaxy Note will work as both a tablet PC and a mobile handset…it is a product that seeks to open a new category in the mobile industry. The Smart Pen interface allows users to sketch, write, create and share more than ever before from one device,” Samsung India Country Head (Mobile and IT) Ranjit Yadav told journalists here.

Stating that the company planned to sell 1-lakh units by the end of this year, Mr. Yadav said the new phone was aimed at executives, professionals and creative people, particularly those engaged in film industry, advertising, fashion designing and architecture. It redefines and enhances the mobile communication by offering a more advanced, productive and creative user experience than ever before.

Samsung also announced the launch of ‘S Choice', a new category menu under the Samsung Apps, with applications specially designed for Galaxy Note's Smart Pen feature.

Now, Blackberry to help you in house-hunt

CHENNAI, Oct 20: Looking to buy property in T. Nagar? Instead of approaching an agent, use a BlackBerry smart phone to locate a suitable property. A mobile application enabled by the Chennai-based IndiaProperty provides overlaying information on what a user finds in the camera viewer, and also data on nearby places of interest such as educational institutions, and hospitals.

The application is not only useful to individuals but also to property owners, real estate agents and builders to advertise their properties for potential buyers. It can be freely downloaded into a BlackBerry device, according to Ms Annie Mathew, Head (Alliances and Developer Relations) of Research in Motion (RIM) India, subsidiary of the Canadian company RIM, which owns BlackBerry.

Ms Mathew said the Wikitude browser in the BlackBerry 7 Operating System enables the new “augmented reality” application to help a user find the suitable property.

By using the camera, a person needs to simply hold up the smart phone and explore the properties in a location.

This is how it works. Go on top of a high-rise building and focus the camera mobile (a smart phone comes with an inbuilt camera of 5 mega pixel) in a particular direction. The application leverages the Global Positioning System functionality of the device to aid a user searching the properties from IndiaProperty's database.

The properties for sale are shown in the form of icons. On clicking an icon, the specification on the property is made available to the user.

The $20 billion RIM said there over 25,000 applications that can be downloaded by nearly 35 million BlackBerry smart phones. Every day, around 3 million applications are being downloaded, she said without giving India-specific numbers.

RIM offers free App downloads to Indian subscribers

HYDERABAD, Oct 19: Research in Motion (RIM), makers of BlackBerry, has extended its offer for free download of a selection of premium applications worth $100 to subscribers in India.

The offer, an expression of appreciation for patience of the subscribers during recent service disruptions, are being made available at BlackBerry App World from Wednesday and the offer would continue up to December 31.

The selected applications include SIMS 3 and Bejeweled — Electronic Arts, N.O.V.A., Texas Hold' em Poker 2, Bubble Bash 2 — Gameloft, Photo Editor Ultimate — Ice Cold Apps, DriveSafe.ly Pro, iSpeech Translator Pro, DriveSafe.ly Enterprise — iSpeech.org, Nobex Radio Premium — Nobex, Shazan Encore — Shazam and Vingo Plus Virtual Assistant.

Announcing that more applications are set to be included in the list, the BlackBerry maker announced technical support for one month free of cost to its enterprise customers.

The availability of the offer would depend on the type of device, operating system version, access to BlackBerry App World and local conditions/restrictions.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, RIM Head, Alliances and Developer Relations, Annie Mathew, and Corporate Communications Director Varghese M. Thomas said the company was taking steps to ensure that there was no disruption in services in future. It was difficult to assess whether subscribers would change loyalty with the disruption which was one off in nature.

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