Research In Motion ‘RIM’ rebrands itself as BlackBerry

RIM has just announced it is officially changing its name to BlackBerry. This is a part of the major changes the company is going through, following the BlackBerry 10 OS launch.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins just announced that Research in Motion is no longer known as “RIM,” and will be simply known as “BlackBerry” going forward.

BlackBerry’s official slogan is now “One brand. One promise.”

From now on you will be able to follow BlackBerry’s stock at NASDAQ:BBRY. Let’s hope this change, along with the new devices and OS will help bring the company back on its feet.

 

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RIM teases the upcoming BlackBerry 10 smartphone

With the official launch of BlackBerry 10 scheduled for January 30, 2013, RIM decided to cause some excitement by teasing one of its upcoming smartphones. The back of the company’s yet to be announced product got partially revealed on its official website.

The teaser image shows the textured back of what’s likely an already leaked, touchscreen-only smartphone, its camera unit on the top left side, as well as a large BlackBerry logo in the middle. The handset’s volume rocker and power key are also visible. A promise for a re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry experience is flanking the image, along with an option to register for updates.

 

Via : BB Blog

 

 

Android continuous rising in Europe, while iOS keeps growing in the US, and Windows gain slowly

The iPhone 5 launch was “and still” big, that it turned out so big that it slowed the growth of Android in the US and the UK, according to Kantar World Panel.

The rest of the EU5 (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) saw just the opposite – Android’s share went up, iOS went down.
It should be noted that iPhone 5 was on sale for only a week in Q3 (even less in some markets) and is yet to launch in China and Brazil, so Q4 is bound to bring big gains for iOS.
Anyway, during this year’s Q3, the market share of iOS in US went up to 35.7%, compared to 21.5% during the same period last year. That’s a massive increase of 14.2 percentage points. Meanwhile Android dropped from 66.4% to 57.5%. Another notable decline is that of BlackBerry, which is now below Microsoft’s OS (which is currently at 2.9%).
In the UK, iOS market share increased by 9.9 percentage points to 18.1%, but Android went up too – from 53.4% to 58.2%. RIM still holds a respectable 8.8% there, while the WP share more than doubled. Symbian practically went extinct in the UK.
iOS shares declined in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia, while Android’s shares increased in these markets. In Germany and Spain in particular, it’s almost complete domination with 77.8% and 82.7% respectively. In Brazil Android went from controlling a fifth of the market to half of it.
In EU5, iOS remained relatively constant, buoyed by its conquests in the UK, while Android went up by 16.2 percentage points. Windows saw decent gains, now controlling about 5% of the market, ahead of the former king, Symbian.
If you want to see all the numbers for all OSes, you can download the PDF from Kantar.

 

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Interbrand : Apple, Amazon, Samsung becoming big value brands! while Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, BlackBerry and Nintendo loses value

 According to Interbrand’s 13th annual Best Global Brands report, Samsung, for the first time in its history, finds its place in the Top 10 of the prestigious ranking. In fact, it’s now considered the 9th most valuable brand on the planet and is estimated to be worth $32.8 billion.

The investment Samsung makes in the marketing of its two latest Android flagships, the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II has paid off not only in massive sales, but also in boosting the brand’s worth, shooting it among the top 10 most valuable in the world. Samsung’s value has increased by 40% since the company became the world’s largest smartphone and mobile phone manufacturer. Moreover, the aggressive marketing campaign and the buzz the Koreans have generated around the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II has also helped them boost their value.

At the other end of the list is Apple cozily taking second place right below Coca-Cola. Valued at $76.5 billion, the Apple brand has made an incredible 129% jump in value compared to last year. While Android’s maker, Google stays in 4’th place with an increased value by 26% valued at $69.7 billion, Microsoft has lost 2% compared to last year with a value of $57.8 Billion, the Amazon brand has made a big 46% jump in value compared to last year valued at $18.6 billion, probably due to the growth of it’s Kindle Fire.

Via : Interbrand (PDF)

BlackBerry Laguna for Verizon leaked in a specs sheet, 4.2-inch display with 355pp, LTE, 8MP

The Canadian company RIM is completely renovating its BlackBerry OS in its BlackBerry OS 10 version with the new gesture-based UI. RIM also developed a hardware that should stands up to their biggest competitor-Windows Phone 8.

BlackBerry Laguna for Verizon, an L-series device, has being leaked in a specs sheet details, that seems to be the CDMA version of the oft-leaked BlackBerry London. According to this sheet, the BlackBerry Laguna will feature a 4.2” screen with the non-standard 1280 x 768 resolution (only the dev units and the London are supposed to use this one instead of 720p). The pixel density works out to the impressive 355ppi.

The BlackBerry Laguna will be powered by a dual-core Krait CPU and 1GB built-in RAM (Qualcomm MSM8960 chipset), the same that powers the upcoming crop of WP8 flagship devices. Other specs on the BlackBerry Laguna include LTE (with GSM 2G and 3G for roaming), dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with mobile hot-spot and Wi-Fi direct, NFC and microHDMI port. In the camera side the BlackBerry Laguna will gather an 8MP capable of shooting 1080p video, and will also have a 16GB of built-in storage and a hot-swappable microSD card. An 1800mAh battery is set to power the whole thing.

We’ve already had a look at what BlackBerry OS 10 is like from these leaked tutorials that gives us even more detail on the new touch gestures.

 

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BlackBerry OS 10 tutorial videos surface online, cool new gestures demonstrated

Maybe the BlackBerry OS 10 has been delayed, but the waiting might be worth it as the new RIM OS is now far from its bland, text-based predecessors. The BlackBerry OS 10 relies heavily on clever gestures for many of the basic tasks – even going back to the homescreen is done with a gesture rather than a button like on Android or iOS. As such, BlackBerry OS 10 brings back memories of the (short-lived) excitement that MeeGo caused.

BlackBerryItalia recorded some tutorials, shows us the best way to use the new gesture. Here are four of them, that shows :

 

Source : BlackBerryItalia (Italian)

RIM or Research In Motion Reports Second Quarter Fiscal 2013 Results : $2.9 billion in revenue, and $235 million loss

 

RIM (Research In Motion) has released its financial results for the second quarter of the year (the company changed from a fiscal year) and despite reported a loss of 235 million dollars, n ‘is not as bad as the previous quarter, when the loss of Canadian society was double.

In the case of income of Canadian society are $ 2.9 billion, that’s 31% less year-over-year. RIM managed to ship 7.4 million smartphones and approximately 130,000 PlayBook tablets, and has a range of a total of 80 million BlackBerry subscribers.

RIM (Research In Motion) reported $ 2.3 billion in cash and assets on hand. This is a slight increase from the fourth quarter of $ 2.2 billion. The Canadian smartphone maker says that everything goes as planned for the future BlackBerry 10, which is scheduled for launch early next year and the Canadian company looks forward to better times when the refreshed OS arrives on the market.

Source : TheVerge