According to the Truphone press release:

Truphone today became the first mobile operator to offer shared international mobile service plans for data, text and voice.  The plans allow businesses with employees based abroad and with employees traveling internationally to share local minutes, messages and megabytes from a single bundle when in the ‘Truphone Zone.’

Business customers will enjoy shared mobile usage at home in the USA and feel at home in Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Additionally, businesses receive wider benefits from Truphone’s unique approach to international telecommunications, including better call quality, a single voice and SMS mailbox, all combined with a superior mobile data experience, and a single bill to manage users across territories.

Shared international pricing plans are a new innovation in the telecommunications marketplace made possible by Truphone’s unique global GSM network architecture. This network effectively eliminates the barriers of cost and complexity that prevent people from communicating internationally with the same attitude and effectiveness as they do in their home territory.

Pricing details are provided in Kevin Fitchard’s post at GigaOm:

Companies can now buy big batches of minutes, texts and megabytes and pool them across not just multiple devices, but also multiple nations. For instance a $500 plan includes 5000 voice minutes, 5000 text messages and 1 GB of 3G data, all of which can be used anywhere in the U.S., U.K. Netherlands, Australia and Hong Kong. Germany, Poland and Spain will join that list later this year.

This makes sense for businesses operating in the “Truphone Zone”. Having attended BlackBerry Live in Orlando last week where my BlackBerry Z10 was almost the only computing device I used, I can see where this offering would benefit business mobile phone users of any stripe, especially if they are primarily in the Truphone Zone.

However, their challenge remains to expand the Truphone Zone beyond these seven countries to have a truly unique offering that mitigates the need for expensive roaming charges regardless of location. For Rogers customers based in Canada, they can now take advantage of a $8.99 per day for 50MB data plan that certainly met my needs last week. The real benefit came while I was actually traveling as I did not have to pay for “one day” subscriptions at each of the airports visited in my trips down and back. On the other hand it also served as a backup to an overly-taxed WiFi situation at the conference hotel as well as keeping connected while attending off-premise events the evenings.

We can all appreciate these types of offerings; WiFi is another player in this scenario. But it seems like we have a bit of a wait before overcoming the last “bastion” of high wireless charges: Roaming.

The bonus in my travels last week: BlackBerry offered free in-flight WiFi via Go Go Inflight to Delta airlines passengers using any BlackBerry, whether BlackBerry 10 or a legacy BlackBerry. It turned out to be very beneficial.

A much anticipated highlight will be the Tuesday morning keynote speeches where we expect to learn more about the future direction of BlackBerry’s offerings.

Here’s my speculation, based on both my own career exposure to multi-tasking and mobile computing combined with my understanding of BlackBerry’s unique QNX technology:

Recently BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins commented how we may not be seeing a tablet in five years’ time while at the same time seeking out a value-added mobile computing ecosystem built around a smart phone. In my previous post, BlackBerry: A Smartphone Manifesto, I concluded with:

What runs through the back of my mind as my BlackBerry 10 experience builds is how I am carrying, in that little black “slab”, a computer that, when combined with an communications ecosystem, makes it many times more powerful than the IBM mainframes I ran for complex research and industrial applications many years ago. Add the input and output hardware appropriate to the user’s environment and needs and you have a powerful mobile computing device that becomes central to managing all your activities.

Think of mobile computing platforms as extensions to, and resources for, our overall neural functioning.

It has caused some questions on various forums that I follow and caused me to reflect on how we are moving towards a world where a smartphone can serve as the centerpiece for not only all our mobile computing needs but also, in context, appropriate information delivery system.

Some past history leading up to this conclusion:

• Multi-tasking PC’s and devices are in my blood; they made me a lot of money during my active career in technology sales, marketing and business development activities.
• During my last years at Quarterdeck, we offered a network supported multi-tasking environment called DESQview/X, employing the X Windows protocol connecting local PC’s, acting as an X terminal, to both local and remote applications over “TCP/IP”.
  • Yes, the concept of client and server in X Windows is backwards relative to our normal concept of these terms. Although still in use in some applications, somehow the concept of data packets, websites and web browsing and the more efficient Internet took over.

• In the fall of 1996 a client sent me to Oracle’s annual partner event where Larry Ellison was promoting the concept of “dumb client” terminals connected via the Internet to remote data base servers for all our information processing activities. It was played down as impractical at the time …. I forget the terminology Oracle used … but there was something about software blades. Whatever the initial terminology was, it eventually evolved into Oracle’s cloud.
• While attending ceBit 2007 the initial implementation of “glass” as a display surface was demonstrated where television broadcasts could be viewed on bathroom mirrors.
• We have also seen Microsoft’s demonstrations of “surface computing” technology using tabletops (not associated with their “tablet” devices).
• Paris has boulevard information boards that are essentially large screen displays where you use “touch” to find, say, appropriate restaurants, museums or other tourist attractions as well as Metro subway route information.

In my recent post I mentioned a couple of other trends:

• the rise of cloud-based computing:
  • providing access to content, entertainment and databases anywhere on any device
  • check out Martin Geddes: The cloud is a socio-economic revolution
• new, open system, developer tools such as HTML5 that simplify application development
  • while improving overall performance
• the evolution of the M2M (machine to machine) “Internet of things”
• use of NFC protocol to enable information exchange, whether transactions or content

Where does this lead to with respect to the “death of the tablet”?  More importantly, where can BlackBerry come up with a value-add business opportunity by building out its “mobile computing platform” around a smartphone?

A recent video, A Day Made of Glass, demonstrates how important the evolution of glass technology supporting displays has become; it also gives a very good overview of why the world will be migrating to one of smartphones, displays (of any size), keyboards, wireless Internet connections and printers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk146eGRUtI

Yet what is the secure, robust and scalable operating system already in place that can support this concept?

• multi-tasking
• multi-processors
• robustness through using microkernels that make it both highly secure and crash resistant
• support for NFC and other industry standard wireless protocols
• the fastest smartphone web browser
• no device drivers required

Bottom line: Coming back to my previous conclusion, enhanced through the concepts in the video, I envision a world five years from now where we walk into an office, home, Internet cafe, library, airport lounge or other environment carrying a handset smartphone.

On entering the smartphone  simply connects wirelessly, with appropriate security, to peripheral hardware such as  display, keyboard and printer. The (BlackBerry) smartphone acts as the arbitrator of all our activities and content. Yes, the tablet form factor is one display option but without the need for built-in intelligence and proprietary application ecosystems.

My one concern: what will be put in place to ensure optimum battery life conditions?

Looking forward to listening to Tuesday’s keynote session at BlackBerry Live 2013. (Live streaming will be available.) One outcome of Heins’ statement is certain; there will certainly be lots of media and blogger attention.

Thanks to Frank O’Kelly on the BlackBerry Business LinkedIn forum for bringing this video to my attention.

Full disclosure: The author is attending BlackBerry Live 2013 as a guest of the BlackBerry Elite program. Other than a non-disclosure agreement regarding confidential information, no conditions have been placed on any coverage I may provide of the event. At the time of authoring this post, I had no proprietary information regarding BlackBerry’s future direction but rather simply my own past experience.

The author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been somewhat volatile for the past few months I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

With the evolution of the Internet, including its email and online storage solutions, the need for sending and receiving documents using faxes has declined. Yet there are still several hundred million fax end points out there.

While your fax usage has probably declined over the past few years, there come times when a faxed document addresses a specific need. And you need a handy way to send and/or receive a fax at minimal costs. PamFax for BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook provides the handy, obligation-free, on demand solution to send and receive faxes worldwide at a very low cost. Check out the five or six simple steps to sending a fax using PamFax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEDsULMqSyg

PamFax has no monthly cost and no subscription requirements for sending faxes to over 180 countries; no credit card is required to sign up. For 32 countries it also provides an inbound fax number. It supports sending documents in over 100 formats from a scanner, smartphone camera, local files and online storage services such as DropBox, Box, Google Drive and SkyDrive. With a PamFax number you can also receive faxes, at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated phone line, directly to a folder of any of these online storage services.

Your PamFax activity is managed through the personalized PamFax Portal; your PamFax account can be accessed on Windows, Mac or Linux PC;s as well as on iOS and Android devices.

With PamFax for BlackBerry 10 or PlayBook you can do as I did – throw out your fax phone line and its associated costs. While sending faxes has no minimum usage requirement or costs, a PamFax inbound line does have a $8.25 per month charge on a one year subscription that includes sending 20 fax pages per month.

Using the BlackBerry 10 camera or a scanning program such as Paper Pusher Scanner, combined with PamFax, the BlackBerry 10 is the only fax hardware device and “fax line” connection you need. And it’s totally mobile, allowing you to send and receive faxes not only at the home office but also at hotels, airports, Internet cafes, restaurants or wherever you have Internet access.

Sign up now and send up to three (3) free trial pages.

Disclosure: this post does contain affiliate links.

To tablet, or not to tablet, that is the question:
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Competition,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Tablet-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream;

With apologies to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Yesterday BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins, in an interview on Bloomberg, mentioned that he felt tablets would be passé in five years. He also mentioned that the only platform you will need will be your smartphone. Of course it has generated controversy across the Internet with posts ranging from how that concept could lead to BlackBerry’s demise, given the potential sales volumes, to how BlackBerry is focusing on making visionary market leading business decisions built around their unique mobile platform technology. He has hinted previously that he would need to see a unique business case for any new tablet device.

Yet he dreams of a smartphone-centric mobile computing world. Quoting from the Bloomberg article linked above:

Heins said in a January interview he’ll only consider a PlayBook successor if it can be profitable. He reiterated yesterday that a BlackBerry tablet has to offer a unique proposition in a crowded market.

“In five years, I see BlackBerry to be the absolute leader in mobile computing — that’s what we’re aiming for,” Heins said. “I want to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat.”

For the past ten weeks I have been using the BlackBerry Z10 and come to appreciate both its power and its potential. “Did I say it was fast?”. That’s actually been the most challenging aspect of using the device – getting accustomed to how fast gesturing, predictive text and the Hub, amongst other features, contribute to a very smooth operation in a real world environment.

But not only do I not waste time waiting for applications to re-open or for spinning clocks, it has become apparent, through using it in practice for many applications, how powerful a device BlackBerry 10, running on the QNX/BB10 OS can become. A few examples:

• hooked it up to my TV panel to watch Argo
  • downloaded from BlackBerry World
  • just prior to winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards
• made a Power Point presentation using it as a controller for my PlayBook hooked up to a display projector
• show friends pictures from our Costa Rica trip on the TV panel
• access all my messaging through the Hub,
  • which is continuously running in background
  • includes Twitter, SMS, Facebook and LinkedIn
  • also easily access upcoming Calendar events
• followed the NHL and Major League Baseball activity as games progressed
  • also use it as a reference source for game summaries, standings and replays
  • watched portions of a few games, including while away from a WiFi environment
• Hands-free calling from my car via Bluetooth connection
• Follow Twitter on a unique and powerful application
• used BlackBerry Messenger’s video for a virtual hospital visit that saved the need for family members to drive about 50 km through rush hour traffic
• access all my pictures via DropBox
• pull up all my critical documents via DropBox or SkyDrive
• browse to many “applications” via their mobile websites (post to follow)
• send and receive faxes (via PamFax) with no phone line or other hardware
• viewed and edited Office documents: spreadsheets, presentations and text documents
• managed WordPress activity
• listen to music services and/or radio stations worldwide
• read newspapers online
• and the list goes on….

I have also had years of experience working with various form factors for intelligent devices, ranging from SlingBox to PBX’s and routers. Physically they can be almost handheld size yet deliver on intelligent performance. I have experienced tablets from Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry.

Over the past couple of weeks I came to realize how powerful a QNX-based device with a smartphone form factor could be. It has the potential to become a full computing platform.

Take a look at the trends:

• the rise of cloud-based computing:
  • providing access to content, entertainment and databases anywhere on any device
  • check out Martin Geddes: The cloud is a socio-economic revolution
• WiFi everywhere as the stealth carrier
• more powerful mobile processors such as the quad core Snap Dragon processors
  • demonstrated at the 2013 CES keynote
  • including how they can support the most intensive game applications
• QNX’s inherent support for secure, scalable and robust multitasking and multi-processing
• hardware and software support for 1080p video and beyond
• the evolution of IP-based communications,
  • including the emergence of WebRTC for “call me anytime” voice and video calling
  • support for superwideband audio
• use of NFC protocol to enable payments
• new, open system, developer tools such as HTML5 that simplify application development
  • while improving overall performance
• the evolution of the M2M (machine to machine) “Internet of things”

I can envision a world where we simply carry around a smartphone with a handheld form factor but as we move about:

• connect to any display panel via either HDMI or a DLNA certified device
  • ranging in size from Playbook’s 7 inch screen to 100 inch meeting room displays
  • available in your home, automobile, Internet cafés, libraries and business friendly locations
• connect to a keyboard via Bluetooth or use the smartphone’s physical keyboard
• connect to the Internet via WiFi or whatever high speed carrier technology is available
• access printers remotely at the end point where paper documents are required

Bottom line: What runs through the back of my mind as my BlackBerry 10 experience builds is how I am carrying, in that little black “slab”, a computer that, when combined with an communications ecosystem, makes it many times more powerful than the IBM mainframes I ran for complex research and industrial applications many years ago. Add the input and output hardware appropriate to the user’s environment and needs and you have a powerful mobile computing device that becomes central to managing all your activities.

Think of mobile computing platforms as extensions to, and resources for, our overall neural functioning.

As Andy Ung at Seeking Alpha states in “BlackBerry: Understanding QNX”:

As smartphones pack stronger processors and become more powerful, the main use of mobile devices will no longer be to make phone calls. BlackBerry is envisioning a future of mobile computing, where distinguishing between computers and smartphones becomes increasingly difficult. From anywhere around the world, in the portability of your pocket, a full-blown computer will be at your access.

We look forward to BlackBerry’s announcement(s) at BlackBerry Live in two weeks: Will it be:

• More powerful smartphones?
• A new platform that launches BlackBerry into the M2M market?, or
• Another unique value proposition built around smartphones and the BlackBerry 10 platform?

How will BlackBerry “take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them”?

Aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal tablet,
Must give us pause.

BlackBerry issued a statement late yesterday:

The comments that Thorsten made yesterday are in line with previous comments he has made about the future of mobile computing overall, and the possibilities that come with a platform like BlackBerry 10. We continue to evaluate our tablet strategy, but we are not making any shifts in that strategy in the short term. When we do have information about our PlayBook strategy, we will share it.

One final comment: many reports talk about PlayBook as a failed device. Yes, they may have sold 200,000 a year ago but in their most recent quarterly report they sold 370,000 units. Not an iPad killer but I find many of my acquaintances who have one could not do without. It remains my primary tablet device, largely for email, browsing on a larger display and viewing videos.

Other posts reflecting on Heins’ statement re tablets:

• Chris Umiastowski, CrackBerry.com: I highly doubt Thorsten Heins thinks the tablet market will die
• Erica Ogg, GigaOm: By 2018, tablets will be obsolete, says legacy smartphone company CEO
• John Paczkowski, AllThingsD: BlackBerry’s Heins: Tablets Are Just Temporary in Mobile Evolution
• Larry Dignan, ZDNet: BlackBerry chief questions tablet category: Maybe he’s not wrong

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been somewhat volatile for the past few months I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

During my experience on a management team restructuring a NASDAQ-listed company I had a real life baptism into the role of news releases, analysts and stock prices. And it was not pretty.

Background: In the summer of 1994 I was relocated to my employer’s Head Office in Santa Monica, California to participate on an interim management team tasked with the restructuring of a utility software publishing company. The company was experiencing declining revenue and earnings. It had been the leading vendor of utilities for Microsoft’s DOS operating system; two awards in my office can attest to that. Upgrade releases would see up to 60% of users updating their software (in the pre-Internet age of using direct marketing for upgrades).

But the company had also acquired rights to software supporting the emerging Internet. In fact we tried to launch a web browser, based on a license obtained from the University of Illinois. But, due to previous “hard line” intellectual property experiences, we did not understand the culture of the Internet when it comes to beta testing of new software. First to use an online beta program, Netscape took over that market space; later, under the leadership of Alec Saunders (yes, that Alec Saunders who is now Vice-President, Developer Relations at BlackBerry) as Internet Explorer Product Manager, Microsoft offered Internet Explorer as an operating system feature, not a product. With no revenue model left on the table our web browser, while having some features not duplicated in today’s browsers for about ten years, went into decline.

But during that time, as Internet Business Development Director, I had set up partnering agreements with the major Internet Service Providers of the day (PSI Net, UUNet, AT&T, Netcom and others) and had been involved with a press release that actually lifted our stock price by about 12% on the issuance day. Basically we would get a royalty for every user of our software who signed up with one of these ISP’s.

And it’s here that I learned about the fragility of being a public market company and its sometimes unfounded exposure to the whims of analysts.

Within two quarters we had returned the company to profitability; it remained profitable for another four or five quarters. At some point early in that period the press release went out. During that entire period the share price rise was “meteoric”; analysts were looking at every press release issued and rejigging their forecasts. Make an acquisition of a company with no proven revenue stream; issue a press release; the share price went up. Over that year period the share price went from around $5 to over $35 within a year.

While the press release related to my activity mentioned a potential revenue model built into those agreements, we had no real market experience with the model. Some analysts were calling our CFO for more information; beyond forecasts for our expanding line of market-tested utility software products, we had no real data to work on. Any forecast would have been purely speculative; in the long run I think it brought in about $50,000. (The company was eventually sold to Symantec for a product that overcame an intellectual property issue Symantec was having.)

Over that time period I realized that analysts want to jump on any information tidbits to see if they can out-forecast the company’s actual internal projections. We had internal spreadsheets and were tracking our distribution channels weekly for inventory movement of our utility software products through distributors to retailers. For most of those quarters we actually managed our quarter end shipments to meet our goals and left backlog for shipment in the following quarter. There was an element of misalignment between analyst projections and business performance.

We knew exactly how much existing product was moving through the channels. But there was no data upon which to base any forecasts on our new business partnering activities. Yet, analysts put out some reports that were purely speculative as to the revenue impact. Our share price would rise with little basis on the business’s actual performance.

In today’s BlackBerry environment we are seeing its stock price whipped around on every analyst report and news release. When it was announced that the service revenue model was changing over the following couple of years, some analysts wanted to wash out service revenue immediately. In after hours trading share price dropped minute-by-minute as analysts rushed to outdo each other on their spreadsheets during the press conference.  As we saw in the last quarter, service revenue only fell 3% as BlackBerry gradually launches new services while demand for the legacy service is slowly falling away. Subsequently other analysts have come out with new “Buy” recommendations, often based on attempts to forecast BlackBerry 10 revenues.

But here’s what perplexes me. Analysts have no history to run on for BlackBerry 10 sales. Encouragement for sales comes from potential renewal of the 76 million BlackBerry user  contracts over the next two years and having 650 carrier relationships, of which over 200 are now carrying or will soon be carrying BlackBerry Z10 and Q10. It was interesting to learn that 55% of the first month’s sales were coming from previous iPhone and Android users. But there’s no long term history from which any reasonable forecast for BlackBerry 10 units can be generated. Internally BlackBerry will have sales goals but there is no regulatory requirement that they be made public.

So, as a proxy, some analysts run out to their local retailers and try to extrapolate stories from a small number of stores giving feedback. Others will try to get component order information from suppliers. Yet, given BlackBerry management’s track record for turning around the company, tracking sell through on a, say, weekly basis has to be one of the key metrics followed internally. It would be much more accurate than any sampling visits by third parties to retail locations is going to provide. We do know they ramped up production in late February to meet the existing demand.

And then Thursday one analyst who has a history of bearishness puts out a report claiming that returns are higher than sales. And the share price tanks, potentially to the benefit of those holding short positions in the stock. But there is no research published to describe their methodology. And more importantly any revenue forecast by any analyst at this point is purely speculative. What this particular analyst has done is demeaning to the term “research”; to achieve my accreditation as a physicist, I had to provide substantial peer reviewed research backing up my conclusions. The price continued to decline through the day in spite of an early statement from BlackBerry.

Analysts are playing a short term game when BlackBerry is in a long term restructuring and rebranding process. As I have said previously with $2.9 billion in cash, 76 million current users and 650 carrier relationships (their distribution channel), they are in a start up position that most entrepreneurs can only dream about.

In the end it’s about the user experience. Many reviews have been positive. From my own perspective, as one who has sold multi-tasking for a large portion of my career, my summary statement is “Did I say it was fast?” Yes, there are going to be a few who just don’t get its unique features and will want to make a return. BlackBerry’s statement claims their return levels are in line with industry norms. They have, and have acknowledged, some initial teething issues that are gradually being addressed. They have the real time sell through data (or better have it); only BlackBerry’s internally collected numbers give the real picture.

Out of all this maybe the analysts need to take a regulator enforced holiday from covering BlackBerry until there are two or three quarters of results to work with. In the meantime, I consider any revenue forecasts to be purely speculative with no basis in fact. At times the stock market becomes a game of speculation whereas shareholders want to be rewarded on their investment for real business performance, based on real numbers.

BlackBerry has certainly had enough of this speculation. And the one report yesterday crossed the line when it comes to being an analyst with any integrity. BlackBerry has finally hit back from a legal perspective. As Chris Umiastowski at CrackBerry.com says, in What’s really going on with Detwiler’s false accusations, and how BlackBerry is handling it beautifully:

When somebody publishes incredibly negative information on a stock, like Detwiler did, and refuses to discuss their research with the company either ahead of time or after the fact, and that “research” doesn’t even pass the smell test and turns out to be totally wrong, it definitely raises eyebrows.

Good on BlackBerry for going after stuff like this.  Nice to see their new Chief Legal Officer, Steve Zipperstein, taking action.

Read Chris’ post (linked above); it gives an excellent perspective from the viewpoint of a former analyst.

Bottom line: any forecast of BlackBerry revenues will remain speculative for another two or three quarters. Fortunately they have an established customer base and distribution channel to work with. Their new management team has evolved an employee culture that is motivated to succeed. But they still need to not only market heavily; they need more users who can pass along their experiences. By their management’s own admission they are still in the launch phase of delivering not only new smartphone experiences but also integrating into their traditional enterprise base.  And we need to hope there are viral effects for which the outcome cannot be reliably predicted.

Sorry analysts, I’ll continue to be very skeptical of your reports, for any stock, not just BBRY.

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been somewhat volatile for the past few months I can only say check with your investment adviser before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

2 billion minutes infographic by Skype

With Skype clients on PC’s, smartphones (iOS, Android, Windows Phone and soon to include BlackBerry 10), tablets, including Kindle Fire, and an emerging offering of Internet-enabled TV’s as well as the current migration of Windows Live Messenger to Skype, it’s bound to continue the growth.

Recent data from Hudson Barton’s Skype Statistics shows that recently as many as 55 million were online concurrently. This number is only an indicator but certainly supports the trending upwards as well.

Bottom line: the numbers speak for themselves.

Of note:

• Sales of one million Z10’s are only up to the quarter end, March 2, 2013. They do not include any shipments from the “one million unit” order or provide any indication of U.S. sales where the Z10 just launched this past week.
• 55% of carrier sales to end users were to customers who mostly migrated from other devices (according to a Bloomberg interview with Heins this was roughly an even split between iOS and Android). A real surprise; can it continue? Twitter comments and some reviews seem to suggest “yes”.
• Gross margins rose to 40%: a positive indicator but the real gross margin on BlackBerry 10 devices will not become fully apparent until next quarter’s report. However this increase  is testament not only to a contribution from Z10 sales but also to the internal restructuring of manufacturing and supplier relationships.
• Cash remains strong at $2.9B; combined with clearing up their income tax situation, it points to strong financial (and inventory) management.
• 350,000 PlayBooks were sold with little, if any, marketing. (And I still use mine as a larger display email and web browser device; it will be a significant advance when it simply gets its version of the BB10 operating system)
• While revenue was essentially the same as last quarter, subscriber base dropped during what was really the first transitional quarter to the new BB10 devices. With any degree of success for both the Z10 and Q10, this should be the low point in the subscriber base.
• And, most surprisingly, BlackBerry reported a profit. They were break even on operations with the profit coming from resolving income tax issues.

Based on my own past experience with a similar but less complex recovery several years ago, I would also note:

• Focus: the new management team triaged and defined the priorities with the result that, at the moment, there is total focus on the Z10 and Q10 launch. Yes there is no BB10 for PlayBook but that is not the recovery generating product. Mention has been made of new products later this year but one expects R& D efforts to continue in order to remain competitive.
• Culture: CEO Heins said it best when he stated: “We’re seeing a new attitude and cultural shift in the company where we look to innovate faster and [ask] how to operate more efficiently”. In my own limited dealings with BlackBerry personnel I have noticed a significant shift in attitude; gone is the arrogance; there is a much less hesitance and a much more confident and proactive “how can we help you?” attitude.
• Employees and managers now have defined responsibilities and goals. An important component of the cultural change. Been there; experienced that in the past.
• Introducing product methodically, in measured steps: The gradual worldwide rollout of BlackBerry 10 was a very smart move. Launch first in a market where there was not significant loss of market share (U.K); do the second launch in the Canadian market which can serve as a proxy for a U.S. launch as much as to deliver to the home country market; launch in east Asian markets where BlackBerry remains a major player. This progression provides time and feedback to get the initial hiccups out of the system, gather customer experience reactions and fine tune manufacturing, distribution and support operations prior to both the U.S. launch and the Q10 launch.
• Initially launching a device with the Z10’s unique touch keyboard experience was often pictured as a negative but this was a risk taken that has largely been a success. While everyone wants to think the traditional BlackBerry market only wants a physical keyboard, using the touch keyboard has created many converts who realize that a uniquely new touch keyboard user experience overcomes preconceptions  and changes the game, especially for a device whose primary function is “text-based.” communications.
• Ramp up manufacturing; it appears that demand has outstripped supply but that also indicates prudent management of inventory and the distribution channel. Determining initial build volumes had to be one of the more difficult challenges of the launch process; wrong guesses can play havoc with the balance sheet. Pre-orders by carriers had to help as one indicator. But until you actually experience real consumer demand, it’s a crap shoot.
• Managing the channel inventory. I have seen too many instances of “pushing” product out the door on the last day of a quarter resulting in mismatch of end user demand and distributor channel inventory. All in an effort to meet stock market expectations. In all cases it was counter-productive and came back to bite.  In BlackBerry’s case inventory levels and sell through reports seem to indicate that there was only enough product sitting on retailers’ shelves at quarter end to meet end user demand over the ensuing few weeks¹. As a former sales executive it would be interesting to know their backlog but that’s not required public information.
• Taking control of the message. For several quarters the company formerly known as RIM had let the media take control of the message, often sounding a death knell. But following the Annual General Meeting last July, CEO Thorsten Heins, accompanied by a his new Chief Marketing Officer, commenced reaching out to provide interviews with the media demonstrating both candor and reality with respect to BlackBerry’s position as a company and the current market environment. He set expectations and restored credibility. Eventually media got the message that BlackBerry was sticking to the QNX Operating System and  preparing a mobile computing device that would provide a new user experience.
• Applications: BlackBerry Z10 launched with 70,000 applications, increasing to 100,000 in time for the U.S. launch. We continue to see more of the popular apps arriving; last week we were told to watch for CNN, The Daily Show Headlines, eMusic, Maxim, MTV News, Pageonce, PGA, Rdio, Skype, Soundhound and Viber amongst others. Kindle, Wall Street Journal, eBay, MLB.com at Bat 2013, CBS Sports and WhatsApp are recent arrivals. It will take the combination of user adoption and developer recognition of the unique features of the BB10 OS and its toolkits, with onging support from BlackBerry’s developer evangelism program,  to build on this base. In six months to a year there I expect will be few complaints about the apps available.

A key point made yesterday; this is only the beginning. QNX and the BB10 OS provide a unique platform for a variety of new mobile computing experiences, not only for smartphones, but also for a range of other devices in the automotive, healthcare and other markets. The next quarter will continue to be a transitional quarter but provide a better picture of BlackBerry’s turnaround. The track record of the new executive team bodes well to date for turning around and managing the overall business but some interesting challenges remain.

Der Speigel started out its report on the earnings with “Totgesagte leben länger” or “the ‘said to be dead’ lives longer”. With this earnings report BlackBerry is now demonstrating that it has a long life expectancy. Credit must be given to all the employees who maintained their optimism and enthusiasm through the “worst of times”, the loyalty of the BlackBerry fan base and, finally, the new executive team for its leadership in making it all happen.

As for those shorting their BlackBerry shares, have a good weekend. And analysts will continue to be all over the map for revenue forecasts; there simply is not enough history to be able to make accurate forecasts.

Check out CrackBerry.com’s Chris Umiastowski’s more detailed thoughts on the results: Thorsten Heins brings BlackBerry back in black.

¹One of my most memorable occasions was when I could tell our somewhat feisty production manager he could go home at five o’clock on the last day of a quarter as we had shipped to our internal goals. Previous quarters meant he was working until midnight on the last day.

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been somewhat volatile for the past few months since I started drafting this series I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

Related articles

• ‘We have now increased our production capacity.’ – BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins (crackberry.com)

  ---

• Kevin O’Leary dumps his iPhone for the BlackBerry Z10 (crackberry.com)

  ---

This post is the continuation of a series that started out as “BlackBerry 10, First Impressions“. But as I get more experience I am changing the title to “BlackBerry 10 “Did I Say It Was Fast?”. After all, if Microsoft can confuse us with the various names it gives to Windows, I can in full conscious change the name of my series in the context of my evolving experience with the BlackBerry 10. And there are many aspects of the BlackBerry 10′s inherent design that contribute to its overall speed. This time there are more examples of how the smart touch keyboard accelerates my smartphone activities.

Now that I have had five weeks’ experience using my BlackberryZ10, I see that the touch keyboard is learning what words and phrases I type often. But two sequences are worth special note. In both cases they make it much easier to enter the content of any messages involving this website and the eBook, Experience Skype to the Max (see top of the right sidebar for more information and to purchase).

First, building an SMS message that I might send related to this website. Click on the image to start a walkthrough by keystrokes; clicking on the right side of each image rapidly almost emulates the true user experience as the message is built up. Also note the guiding text beneath each image.

Next, let’s walk through the keystrokes for a message related to the eBook:

In total 189 characters in 87 keystrokes, almost a 60% reduction in keystrokes required to build these messages  And no spelling or URL errors!

Two examples demonstrating how each individual user’s Z10 will be building over time a customized lexicon of her/his commonly used words and phrases; in these cases mine had memorized:

• my most commonly used URL’s
• the title of this blog, and
• the title of my book

In addition these examples demonstrate how the BlackBerry Z 10′s inherent lexicon picks up on and combines “a catalog of a given language’s words (its wordstock), and a grammar, a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences”. While not shown here, it has also memorized a short form of my name used at the end of my emails. Type a capital “B” and it suggests BlackBerry over the “L” (surprise!).

Often when entering an email field in the web browser it will come up with the suggestion of my email address. One click email address entry. Definitely a very intelligent mobile communications device.

Bottom Line: The Z10′s touch keyboard is one more reason I ask “Did I say it was fast?”.

Easter weekend special: One of these messages talks about my book which you can obtain by clicking on the link in the sidebar; learn more information here. Effective April 28, 2013 and over the Easter weekend I will reduce the price by 50% to $4.44. Ends midnight EDT (GMT-4) Monday, April 1, 2013. Get the background on using Skype across multiple devices and platforms in preparation for the forthcoming availability of Skype for BlackBerry 10 (no launch dates have been given yet).

Special thanks to my website developer for his work on making it possible to enhance the Gallery feature of WordPress.

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Related articles

• Thorsten Heins talks BlackBerry 10 with Piers Morgan(crackberry.com)

  ---

• BlackBerry 10 First Impressions II: Touch Keyboard and Browser(voiceontheweb.biz)

  ---

A week ago, I wrote my initial post based on my own experience: BlackBerry 10: First Impressions I–Display and Share. Today I want to cover the touch keyboard and the browser. One is a case where BlackBerry offers an entirely new user experience; the other improves (immensely) the previous user experience with browsers – no spinning hourglass!

BlackBerry 10 Touch Keyboard

Touch keyboards have not been “my thing”. I took “typing” (now called “keyboarding”) in high school long before there were PC’s and smartphones. My fingers are too big for consistently accurate keyboarding on the iPhone. So, of course, as a veteran user of legacy BlackBerries, I am supposed to be “awaiting” the arrival of the Q10 with the physical keyboard. However, little did I realize the power of QNX and the hardware to deliver a new keyboarding algorithm.

Some suggestions come up before starting the next word.	Sometimes it takes a few keystrokes to get to the desired word (in this case, 4)

• Predictive text changes the game. Start typing and suggestions come up above related keys.
• It learns what you type frequently; so now it includes suggestions of personally  frequent words such as my website address and email address if it thinks I am headed that way.
• It significantly reduces spelling errors/corrections. Once the word you want starts to appear in the suggestions just flip it up and save the risk of typing mistakes.

And sometimes the first keystroke offers a desired suggestion.	Comes complete with emoticons and other options
Start to type “Http”; you may get “http://” for a suggestion. But looking at my past history when I type it I am offered three different full website names that I have frequented.	Website URL’s and email addresses are changed to active hyperlinks. Phone numbers turn into active call buttons.

One key point: you must flick up the letter “key” below, not the suggestion itself to capture the desired word.

Diehard physical keyboard users will have the option of the forthcoming Q10 but at the sacrifice of a true 720p display – which, as discussed in my previous post, gives stunning HD video and picture quality.

Bottom line: 100 character sentences in 15 to 20 keystrokes and fewer typo/spelling errors. For me and many others, the BlackBerry 10’s touch keyboard offers not only a unique but also more productive typing experience.  As “bradnrad” on the CrackBerry forum linked above says:

BlackBerry 10 is designed for gestures and swiping, clicking and a full screen display. it’s no doubt the Q10 won’t be a let down, but one of the most pleasurable experiences about the Z10 is everything you do in blackberry 10 feels flawlessly designed for a full touch device.

One suggestion re the keyboard: occasionally I find that I have accidentally hit the Send button when attempting to enter a letter/number near the Send button (N, M,<-, for example). It would be helpful to have an option to “Confirm Send” so that a partially complete message is not sent out.

The Browser

My major aggravation with the legacy BlackBerry was the browser. Often it was slow to come up, was missing elements on the web page; most importantly it was not reliable for bringing up a website. Some, such as PGATour.com always popped up, but others just could not make it. Not a satisfactory experience. It was somewhat better on the iPhone and Android devices but again it was not near the browsing experience of a PC.

That all changes with the BlackBerry 10. As has been mentioned many times it has the fastest HTML5 browsing speed on a mobile device:

HTML5 Test on Z10	HTML5 Test Comparisons

In practice it shows. Click on a link in an email, text message, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and you’re quickly at the targeted web page. Here is where speed plays a huge role. I will often browse through Twitter messages or the Facebook news feed; when I see a desired link I pull it up, take a look and decide whether I want to continue reading or return to Twitter or Facebook.

Two more features:

But then there’s the Reader View – for websites that have not adopted Responsive Design.

Original Post on TSN.ca	Select the Options Menu (three dots at lower right) Select Reader	Reader View brings up the main content in an easily readable format.

Hopefully web designers will incorporate Responsive Design into their sites going forward. Looking at Toronto’s newspapers, the Globe and Mail and National Post both support Responsive Design with no need for using Reader View; however, the Toronto Star has not adopted it (they bring up great pictures but the text font is worse than the example above); one needs Reader View to be able to absorb the content readily.

One feature associated with the browser has had significant use on my part. Share, discussed in the previous post in this series, allows me to quickly share a web page URL via Twitter, Facebook, SMS text message, BlackBerry Messenger or to open the web page on a Bluetooth connected PlayBook, amongst other options. While there are similar opportunities for sharing on other smartphones, it’s the entire Sharing Flow algorithm that makes it very easy (and quick) to Share on the BlackBerry 10.

Bottom line: As mentioned above, the BlackBerry 10 browser is a significant improvement over those on legacy BlackBerry devices (other than the PlayBook which has similar speeds to the BlackBerry 10). It has basically turned browsing on a BlackBerry to the equivalent of browsing on a PC in terms of speed, performance and bringing up a broad range of web page formats, including those with plugin requirements.

In closing, it’s not any one individual feature but rather the combination of the display, keyboard, browser and more that contribute to the overall speed of using the BlackBerry 10 and its claim to offer a new mobile computing experience. Did I say it was fast?

More to follow: The Hub, BlackBerry Messenger.

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Related articles

• BlackBerry Partner Purchases One Million BlackBerry 10 Smartphones (crackberry.com)

  ---

• WhatsApp for BlackBerry 10 now available (mobilesyrup.com)

  ---

While I have found a few reviews that try to define the BlackBerry 10 based on the hardware, the real differentiating focus needs to be on the overall user experience. It’s the combination of both hardware and software resources that is integral to the device’s performance. BlackBerry 10 uses much of the most recent processor and display hardware available. I’m sure we’ll see new models in the future that incorporate Qualcomm’s newer processors featured in the CES keynote. My overview comment in this regard comes from working with the BlackBerry Z10 that is here in my hands today – it’s fast in many respects. Let me repeat – it’s fast!

In practice I have encountered several interesting features that contribute to this overall user experience. I’ll cover them over a few posts; today I want to talk about the display and “Share”.

Display

As we have seen new smartphones come out we have heard about Retina Display on iOS devices and AMOLED on Samsung’s Galaxy devices running Android. They are impressive.

The Z10’s 720p OLED display compares very favourably and is, in my subjective opinion, quite stunning, matching or exceeding the viewing experience of any of these devices. While I put an example of the lock screen on the left, PC displays cannot do it justice. In his very detailed review of the BlackBerry Z10, CrackBerry.com’s Kevin Michaluk notes:

The BlackBerry Z10′s 4.2-inch display sports a resolution of 768×1280, clocking in at 356 pixels per inch. The iPhone 5 in comparison has a 4-inch display with 326 PPI. The hardened display glass features a new technology called Touch On Lens, where the touch technology is applied to the back side of the cover glass to eliminate the need for a separate touch panel. This allows BlackBerry to achieve a thin design. Under the finger, the display was always extremely responsive.

This sunset photo was originally taken on my 12.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot SX40HS camera with a telephoto lens.  It catches the smallest ripples in the water of the infinity pool and reflections of the setting sun of both the pool and ocean. (Location: Tamarindo, Costa Rica where watching the sunset is a bit of a ritual.)

For the lockscreen and wallpaper I have used the LockScreen Wallpaper application.

Comparison of the New York Times app provides some interesting points:

New York Times Top News BlackBerry Z10 (1280 x 720)	New York Times Top News iPhone 5 (640 x 1136)
NYT Higgs Article BlackBerry 10	NYT Higgs Article iPhone 5

The BlackBerry 10 display:

• uses the Slate font as its primary font throughout to deliover a crisper, easier read than a Serif font.
• provides slightly more content on the Top News Page as a result of its slightly higher resolution

The good news is that both deliver a format suited to the display size.

Bottom line: the combination of the display hardware and the Slate font, along with its overall graphics speed are one major contributor to a unique user experience. You have to see the actual device to fully realize its richness.

Share

Share is probably the most under-promoted feature of BlackBerry 10. It was certainly promoted as a feature to incorporate into third party offerings at developer events during discussions involving user interface design.

Many of the inherent apps, such as the browser, File Manager, photos and videos,  include a “Share” button in the action bar or action menu. Third party apps such as News applications (New York Times and CBC News), have incorporated the Share button.

Clicking on the “Share” button will suggest sharing an item, whether a web page, news or sports story to multiple destinations:

File Manager Share	Share Destination Options

without the need to go into any associated application. Select your networking mode, if necessary select a contact, and send out a link, Tweet, Facebook update or view it on your Playbook, amongst other choices.

Bottom line: The Share feature and its tight integration with these applications is one more feature that contributes to making use of the BlackBerry 10 “faster”. Hopefully more third party applications will recognize the value of Share, if appropriate in the context of the application, and incorporate it via the developer tools available.

These are only a couple of the features that I have found of significant value in the unique BlackBerry 10 experience. I am still finding new features involving the messaging integration in the Hub, learning all you can do with Voice Control, watching video (movies, sportscasts) on my HDTV screen, listening to the UK’s ClassicFM 0n my office stereo radio/CD player and many other nifty features. Next: the browser and using the Hub with Peak and Flow.

Bottom line: After taking a day or two to learn the new user experience, did I say ‘it’s fast”? (And the learning curve is much less onerous than for starting up with Windows 8.)

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of BlackBerry shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in BlackBerry organizations around the world.

Related articles

• A roundup of positive indicators for the BlackBerry Z10 on its one month anniversary (crackberry.com)

  ---

No Roaming Charges

My goal was to avoid any of the expensive roaming charges associated with using a wireless carrier outside of Canada. It would have cost $50.00 for 15 minutes of voice and 100 text messages and $40.00 for 10MB of data. Airplane mode was turned on for the iPhone; turned off the carrier connection on my Torch. Here is my “no roaming charges” experience.

Availability

I found WiFi was available at all five hotels on our tour. My Priority Club membership meant I had free WiFi at an Intercontinental Hotel. A lodge in the “remote” Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean coast had recently installed WiFi in their reception area.

A hotel near the Arenal volcano had good WiFi in their reception area and intermittent WiFi in the rooms which were essentially multi-room chalets in rows up a mountain side (so we could all view the volcano clearly). The J.W. Marriott at Guanacaste on the Pacific Coast had WiFi but with a reduced charge due to our association with a tour. The Quality Hotel for our last night prior to flying home had free WiFi. But here was the real surprise: our tour stopped at several wayside restaurants for lunch; they all had WiFi. And even some of the “tourist” experiences, such as a Crocodile Tour, had WiFi in their store.

I also bought a one hour WiFi subscription during our two stopovers at Miami airport and finally had a chance to check out GoGo Inflight during our flight home from Miami to Toronto. The San Jose, Costa Rica airport had free WiFi.

So while I did not have Internet access while riding the tour bus (where cell phone use was discouraged) or on the riverboat tours in the various jungle rivers, it was readily available at every stop along the way. Sometimes you had to ask for a password but most staff had the answer immediately. The FourSquare map on the left provides an indication of where I checked in; large dots indicate multiple check-in points.

(As a side observation the local riverboat tour guides all had mobile phones to share the locations of various bird and animal sightings.)

Using IP-based Communications

I had three options for free calls back to Canada or Europe (Belgium, Italy): Skype, BBM Voice or Rogers One Number (from my wife’s MacBook).   One significant advantage of these services is they all use HD Voice, providing much clearer audio on voice calls than any carrier can provide. Facetime was also available but is not a normal mode for my activities; Facebook Messenger was also an option but again something I use infrequently. At various times I used all of the first three in context, including a Skype video call, but a couple of observations.

Voice/video call blocking over Skype does not suffice any more. At the Park lodge, the WiFi blocked Skype voice calls; try Skype Test Call and you were cut off five seconds into the call. Yet I was able to make a very clear 15 minute voice call to an Italian acquaintance using BBM Voice (and now I can reveal he was testing out BBM Voice on a BlackBerry Z10). I attempted a FaceTime call; it rang but the other party did not answer (all of these offerings should have the equivalent of Skype Test Call).

The lodge was probably still trying to recover the cost of supporting the relic shown to the right but I did not see anyone using it during our two days there. On the other hand Skype needs to start working to ensure it is not indiscriminately blocked where others dare to provide free voice and video communications.

As for text messages, I could access and respond to all my BlackBerry text messages using Rogers One Number on my wife’s MacBook. Not many messages but was handy when I needed to reset a Google 2-step password, etc. I also exchanged iMessage messages with another iPhone user in Canada over WiFi even though my iPhone wanted me to disable Airplane mode.

If I have one complaint it’s with the Internet service provider at the Intercontinental and Marriott (was the same one for both). Why do I need to log back onto their service every half hour or so? This was essentially a time wasting nuisance with no financial gain to the service provider or hotel. And why do they not recognize that hotel guests are usually going to have more than one device that requires WiFi access? Between the two of us we had six devices.

Why was WiFi intermittent at Arenal Springs? Too many WiFi access points. It seems like they put an access point in each chalet and they overlapped. Devices wanted to drift amongst the access points. The meshing of access points is still a technology under development.

Bottom line: WiFi is becoming a much more reliable and available unregulated Stealth carrier as an alternative to roaming services. I was able to maintain any necessary communication (not that I want to do much while on vacation) and follow my email, Twitter and Facebook feeds on any of my mobile devices with no difficulty. In fact, I also watched the BlackBerry 10 launch event from that Marriott hotel using my BlackBerry Playbook – it had the fastest web browser. And I was able to track the reviews and follow up news during the remainder of my trip via Twitter and Google+.

My final cost for Internet service over the ten days? $20 at the Marriott, $9 at Miami Airport and $4 for GoGo Inflight. These gave me unlimited calling (except GoGo Inflight) and data.

Note: last week Rogers announced new rates forthcoming for roaming in the U.S.

Update: Today TruPhone announced they are going to offer WiFi with their TruPhone+ service that combines use of both GSM and WiFi for network access:

‘Truphone+’ seamlessly integrates the company’s unique Global GSM network with its internet calling application. The combination of these two technologies enables those with no GSM coverage to make and receive calls using WiFi in their homes and offices or in a WiFi hot spot. Importantly, customers will often benefit from improved call quality.

Truphone + uses “intelligent routing” to automatically choose whether to carry the call over GSM or WiFi by making real time measurement of signal quality. The user needs only to ‘press call’ to make a secure connection over the highest quality link available.

With an elegant user interface designed to streamline the user experience, Truphone+ puts more control in the hands of the user. A call cost indicator displays the precise per-minute cost so the user can decide when and where they want to make a call, thereby eliminating bill shock.

One more reinforcement of WiFi as the Stealth carrier for mobile communications.

The best value of the trip: we checked out the cost of staying at the J.W. Marriott if we had gone on our own. Two nights would have cost two-thirds of the entire cost of our trip with nine nights of hotels, bus travel, three meals a day and a very knowledgeable and effective tour director. If you want to get a great cross-section of Costa Rica’s geographical features and wildlife, Caravan’s tour is highly recommended.

Related articles

• What’s Eating Your Data Plan? (blogs.blackberry.com)

  ---

While I still await the arrival of my Z10, it was interesting to follow the coverage over the past week as I completed my vacation in Costa Rica last week and then attended the Toronto BlackBerry Experience Forum on Monday.

Reviews have largely been positive, especially by those who “get” the value of its unique BlackBerry Hub/Flow/Peek features. Some samples:

CrackBerry.com’s Simon Sage gives a very through and complete walk-through in BlackBerry 10 Review:

Though BlackBerry 10 has one foot in the past, it reaches out in new directions to finally meet competing platforms head-on. Navigation has been optimized for touch input, doing away with the optical trackpad. Developers have been given Cascades from T.A.T. so they can make apps beautiful. Powerful camera software opens new possibilities for photos and video. Active Frames provide helpful at-a-glance status of running applications. Users can now share live views of their device displays through BlackBerry Messenger.

The bottom line is that BlackBerry 10 really is the best of the old and the best of the new assembled seamlessly into an elegant, practical, and integrated package.

My favorite review is David Pogue’s in the New York Times, BlackBerry, Rebuilt, Lives to Fight Another Day, where he starts off with:

I’m sorry. I was wrong.

This apology is for the bespectacled student at my talk in Cleveland, and the lady in the red dress in Florida, and anyone else who’s recently asked me about the future of the BlackBerry. I told all of them the same thing: that it’s doomed.

He goes on later to say:

Well, BlackBerry’s Hail Mary pass, its bet-the-farm phone, is finally here. It’s the BlackBerry Z10, and guess what? It’s lovely, fast and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas.

and, after a fairly thorough detailed review, concludes with:

So then, is the delightful BlackBerry Z10 enough to save its company?

Honestly? It could go either way. But this much is clear: BlackBerry is no longer an incompetent mess — and its doom is no longer assured.

Ewan McLeod, author of Mobile Industry Review, in 10 Things I Love About The BlackBerry Z10, gets to his 10th “Thing” and then says: “Ok I was only going to write 10 but here are some more that I can’t help but tell you about.” Check out the review for his 23 “Things”.

Stephen Fry, in The Fire Question, starts out with

It’s very simple. I have a Samsung Galaxy III, a BlackBerry Z10 , an iPhone 5, an HTC Windows 8x and an LG Nexus 4. More or less the smartest soldiers in the smartphone army.

There’s a fire in my flat/hotel-room/bordello/ski-chalet. I have only enough time to take ONE. Which do I choose? This is the question I have to ask myself.

He then puts down his thoughts on each of those devices and concludes the BlackBerry Z10 comments with:

But if “taking a little getting used to” is the worst I can say of it, then let me say the best of it. I think the BB Z 10 (the virtual keyboard version) is one of the very very best gadgets I’ve ever played with. From the moment you slide your finger up and the gorgeous display fades subtly into view to the moment you pull down the little sleep curtain to reveal a pretty orange alarm clock, you are won over.

Read the post to find out his choice in the fire scenario.

QNX’s hometown newspaper¹, the Ottawa Citizen, concludes BlackBerry 10 a whole new cellphone experience, with:

The BB10 is a glowing technical achievement, but its success is far from certain.

It changes things. It forces people to adjust to a new style of mobile computing. BlackBerry has introduced this kind of earth-shaking change once already with its Playbook tablet computer. Those tablets were left to languish on store shelves while consumers opted for more familiar user experiences and app stores stocked full of choices.

BlackBerry wanted to make this device a powerhouse, and it has succeeded. Whether consumers respond in kind is yet to be determined.

As for the customer response on Canada’s launch day, BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion, issued a brief statement:

“In Canada, yesterday was the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone.  In fact, it was more than 50% better than any other launch day in our history in Canada,” said Thorsten Heins, President & CEO of BlackBerry.  “In the UK, we have seen close to three times our best performance ever for the first week of sales for a BlackBerry smartphone.”

and the Globe and Mail reports, in RIM hails ‘best day ever’ for a Canadian BlackBerry launch:

Mark Langton, a spokesman for BCE Inc.’s Bell Mobility, said that Tueday saw the “biggest day one sales” of any previous BlackBerry device, and that a large number were people upgrading from older BlackBerrys. Rogers Communications Inc., meanwhile, said it sold more BlackBerrys on the Z10’s Feb. 5 launch date than on any other day since helping launch BlackBerry service in 1999 – and noted that some stores had temporarily sold out of the device.

Off to a great start in two markets where BlackBerry maintained some degree of success during the “long wait”. We still await the response in the U.S. market next month to get a better feel for its impact there.

In a separate post I’ll talk about Monday’s BlackBerry Experience Forum attended by many of BlackBerry’s enterprise customers in the southern Ontario area.

¹While BlackBerry’s headquarters remain in Waterloo, Ontario, the QNX developer team has always operated out of a suburb of Ottawa.

Related articles

• Yesterday’s Canada BlackBerry Z10 launch was the biggest ever for BlackBerry (crackberry.com)

  ---

I’ll post about BlackBerry 10 over the weekend but as background I want to recommend two recent and significant posts.:

Chris Umiastowski at CrackBerry.com provides both the history and feature set of QNX, describing why it presents some unique opportunities as the real core asset for RIM’s future:

History of QNX and its Implementation in BlackBerry 10

In 2000, almost 20 years after the first version of QNX hit the market, the QNX team had completely re-written the OS and launched Neutrino. As Dan Dodge describes it, “QNX is used in systems where the cost of failure is very high”. The Neutrino operating system is used to control huge Cisco Internet routers, lighting and equipment for huge Las Vegas shows, slot machines, windmill turbines, and nuclear reactors, just to name a few markets.

Randy Cheng’s interview at CNet with Alec Saunders provides the full story on the evolution of the Blackberry 10 Developer Relations program and why we can expect to see over 70,000 apps announced for the launch:

Meet the man who would make BlackBerry apps cool

Saunders has embraced a concept that RIM had long ignored: that developers and a healthy app “ecosystem” can make or break an operating system. He’s tried to make the company more accommodating and responsive to developers. It’s the touchy-feely stuff RIM execs never thought was important.

My recent series on BlackBerry 10 provides some additional background; today represents the opportunity to get the full picture. You can see the RIM employees’s excitement building on Twitter and Facebook. Alec’s Developer Relations team, along with the entire RIM team under new CEO Thorsten Heins, deserves kudos for bringing together the infrastructure for what has to be one of the most complex technology company recovery efforts ever.

The final measure, of course, is user adoption. A new adventure for RIM begins.

I’ll have more to say on the launch information over the weekend; meanwhile back to completing a long overdue personal vacation. I will also be reporting on how I managed to stay in touch relying totally on WiFi connections for the entire 10 days; no roaming charges allowed! And there’s an interesting BBM Voice story in there.

To get to the questions:

What will BlackBerry Messenger become?

Will BlackBerry Messenger become a more comprehensive communications application competing with Skype and FaceTime (and even Facebook Messenger’s new voice service)? Recently BlackBerry Messenger on legacy BlackBerries (OS 5, 6 and 7) added BBM voice, a free voice calling service between WiFi access points. But also I have had video conversations using the Video Chat application over WiFion the Playbook. And the BlackBerry Developer blog has discussed various tools for supporting VoIP.

At the same time there is heavy promotion of BBM Connected apps. Basically the technology foundation exists with RIM for building text, voice and video conversation applications. The real question comes down to how many end points can any communications application reach?

All I can say at this time is to expect some significant announcements about BlackBerry Messenger at the launch event. After all it’s the key glue for encouraging BBM’s current 60 million users to stay with BlackBerry.

What mainstream apps will be available?

RIM has been building partnerships and applications involving social media. Facebook clients exist on all current BlackBerry devices and it has been seen in some BlackBerry 10 demonstrations (even came up by accident in the demonstration posted at Voice On The Web). We know they will also have FourSquare, Twitter and LinkedIn applications. WordPress has been on the BlackBerry Playbook as a port of their Android application.

While there are lots of requests for Netflix, it’s not a big issue in Canada. Netflix Canada needs to upgrade their content offering; currently it appears to be embroiled in copyright issues. It’s not a big hit in Canada but can understand the demand in the U.S.

Many enterprise applications such as SAP and Cisco Webex have been mentioned as being supported. We know MLB.com is coming.

We’ll really have to wait until the launch day to see the launch line up of mainstream applications. It’s no secret that RIM has had a separate developer relations team focused on the mainstream apps.

Will some developers come up with unique “Killer” apps that leverage the unique feature set of BB10/QNX?

Everyone looks at the app count and the mainstream apps. But what if some developers have fully leveraged QNX’s (and BB10’s) unique features to come up with some “killer” or highly viral apps that simply cannot be reproduced on Android or iOS?

Only time will tell on this but there’s some significant opportunity here.

Will we see any linkage to the QNX automobile applications?

QNX’s legacy relationship with automobile manufacturers has certainly seen more coverage recently. The Bentley concept car at CES 2013 attracted a lot of attention. I did see a BlackBerry 10 with a concept application for interacting with the Bentley. Will there be any mention of this capability at the launch?

How will they attract non-BlackBerry owners?

I see two distinct customer groups: the largely loyal existing, 79 million strong, customer base and then the “others”. The challenge is to attract the “others”, especially those whose smartphone contracts come up for renewal. Will a new user experience be enough?

Only time, the marketing activity and the response from end users will tell? This is RIM’s biggest challenge in terms of rebuilding the brand.

Will production match demand?

The most pressing question at this time is can RIM forecast production to meet demand across the combination of a touch keyboard and hardware keyboard. There is a lot of pent-up demand. Will RIM sell millions of units in the first few months? My prediction: 2 million in the first month after product release; 5 million in the first full business quarter after product release (March to May 2013). (And, yes, I have had responsibility for forecasting sales and production in the course of my career.)

This one is not a question. With $2.9 Billion cash and an experienced CMO, expect a very strong and active marketing campaign.

Bottom line: These are only a sampling of the questions outstanding.  When I heard that RIM bought QNX two years ago I felt that, if RIM could execute and turn its features into a marketable story, RIM could come up with an interesting and unique product offering. Now the question is “What will RIM surprise us with at the launch event?”

On the first anniversary of Thorsten Heins’ appointment as RIM CEO, we have seen all the pieces put in place for an amazing turn around. He stuck to the original vision for what QNX could provide as a mobile computing platform; he cleaned up the business side of RIM (restructuring, combining layoffs with strategic new hires, reorganizing manufacturing and most importantly making sure everyone knew their role and has responsibility for their role.); he has the company totally focused on a mission.

The events of the next month will be a widely monitored and a most interesting experience in the technology business world.

Previous posts:

• BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Preamble
• BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Main Story

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of RIM shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in RIM organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been on a tear for the past few days since I started drafting this series I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

One other background point: I started selling multi-tasking on instrumentation mini-computers in 1980; instantly customers of these $100K to $500K instruments doubled their throughput as they could analyze previously collected data while gathering new data. In my career selling PC hardware and software, multitasking on DOS-based PC’s were a key contributor to my success. Two awards for having the top selling PC utility software in the Canadian market sit in my office.

As a result an instinctive sense of what to expect from multi-tasking performance as an end user is in my blood. When I acquired a Playbook a year ago (and got it updated to the OS 2.x firmware) it was quickly obvious that this was a true multitasking tablet. Messages are always current; the browser is the fastest of all tablets and switching between running applications is instant. It starts to give a feel for what a QNX-based mobile device can be. It has become my default mobile device. (And, to my surprise, several of my acquaintances have acquired them and are quite happy with their ability to meet their mobile computing needs.)

Gesturing

BlackBerry 10 has no “Home” button. Just as importantly, it can readily be operated using one hand. Flick a thumb or finger up/down or left/right for initiating any action. Gesturing and touch are the primary “pointing” or “launch” actions for driving a BlackBerry 10. Occasionally I’ll forget on my other touch devices and wonder why a simple swipe does not open up the display.

Speed

True multi-tasking contributes to two main features:

There is no messaging application. In its place BlackBerry Hub is an “always on” feature that essentially manages all messaging activity in background whether email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or phone calls; in addition it manages calendar and scheduling activity in real time. Any time you need to access BlackBerry Hub simply flick a finger up and to the right and it’s there. You can “Peak” to see if a  message requires action and quickly return to your active application (or any other application). BlackBerry Hub is the logical extension of RIM’s foundation of building innovative and revolutionary communications devices.

BlackBerry Flow allows you to readily access any open application and switch between open applications without any hesitation. No pregnant pauses while waiting for any active application to effectively open up every time you want to access it.

The Browser

As seen in the demonstration, one word defines the browser – “fast”, like really “fast”. No more “requesting” (unless a website itself is slow in loading). Always the last to load when accessing the Voice On The Web home page, the BlackBerry 10 browser brings up the slider at the top of Voice On The Web’s home page almost instantly. The “Reader” mode, seen in the demonstration, is a bonus feature that makes websites more readable. HTML 5 tests are one confirmation as one of BlackBerry 10’s having the fastest smartphone browsers.

The Keyboard

While there will be a model with a hardware keyboard, RIM has been innovative in coming up with a unique touch keyboard that allows you to compose, say, a 100 character sentence or phrase in as few as 20 keystrokes (my own experience in checking this out). It not only provides a predictive text display but as you start a word it suggests a variety of words above several keys that can be entered simply by an upward flick of the finger. A simple gesture of swiping down on the keyboard switches to the numbers/symbols keyboard. And it has a Caps Lock capability.

Device Summary

The combination of all the features above essentially nit-picks away at all the little things that delay or hold up your smartphone activity. They create a unique user experience with no spinning hourglass or hesitation. A feeling for this experience can be obtained when using the BlackBerry Playbook with its multi-tasking capability and Messages application. As mentioned previously, it has become my default device for email and browsing (I do have an iPhone 5 and Android tablet to get a comparison).

RIM’s primary challenge for breaking back into the market in a significant way was to build a unique user experience. They appear to have addressed that challenge. All that’s needed is final end user experience and feedback in the open market as final confirmation.

Applications

Over the past 18 months Alec Saunders, whom I first met as a competitor two decades ago and followed as he later built a start-up communications application, has built up both a proactive developer relations program and enthusiastic developer relations team with the announced goal of having 70,000 applications at launch. The primary SDK’s went “Gold” in mid-December allowing developers to make final checks on their prototype devices. Over the past two weekends over 40,000 applications were submitted via two port-a-thons. In addition we know there were at least 25,000 BlackBerry Playbook applications that readily port with a minimum of effort.

Why could so many apps be built in such a short period? Basically because Alec’s team has worked to ensure that the appropriate developer tools are readily available. They also provided over 35 BlackBerry Jam sessions worldwide to educate developers about the tools and app store while providing them with prototype devices for testing their applications.

Porting the Android version of PamFax took less than half an hour; not only is it available on Playbook but its also is approved for BlackBerry 10. During last weekend’s port-a-thon, to test out the experience I submitted a Voice On The Web application via the App Generator. Within 15 minutes I had built the app and submitted my App Developer application. While this is a simple app, it gave me a brief exposure to what developers encounter in the process.

Update: today the Globe and Mail summarizes it very succinctly in “How RIM is trying to win the app war“

Enter Alec Saunders. RIM’s fresh-faced, entrepreneurial vice-president of developer relations, arrived in September, 2011, and immediately set on expanding the company’s efforts to woo app makers over to RIM’s platform. Mr. Saunders’ team targeted 17 countries that represented the bulk of developers around the world. He began hiring developer outreach people in many of these markets, particularly Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. He expanded his team from 37 people to about 140 today, and traveled the world holding developer conferences. In early October he had accrued the 100,000 flight miles necessary for Air Canada’s Super Elite status; by the first week of December, he had 170,000 miles.

One final important point: One aggravation of the legacy BlackBerry App World has been the effort required to download and install applications, often including a time consuming reboot. With the PlayBook, this process s a breeze and no reboot is required; it usually takes less than a minute. BlackBerry App World has been rebranded as BlackBerry World and has now become one of the easiest app stores to work with. From the developer side, their applications can be sold on BlackBerry World  not only via PayPal but also using a credit card or carrier billing.

Customer Loyalty

While RIM has 79 million active BlackBerry users, it’s the 60 million on BlackBerry Messenger who are key as BBM provides more bonding to a BlackBerry application across a user’s social network. Through Twitter (@BlackBerry, #BB10, @asaunders, @filos) and and blog posts one gets the strong sense of customer loyalty. Recent media articles attempting to downplay the BlackBerry brand have generated significant numbers of comments supporting Blackberry. Many are holding back on new smartphones purchases until BlackBerry 10 is available. Carrier reservations, discussed below, are providing confirmation.

Carriers

RIM’s primary distribution channel comprises over 600 carrier relationships worldwide for its legacy product line. Over 150 have been reported as evaluating BlackBerry 10. Rogers, Bell Canada, Telus have been taking reservations for several weeks; CrackBerry.com reports “Canadian carriers have already had to increase their pre-order volume because they’ve sold out.”

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have reported they will be carrying BlackBerry 10; we are also starting to see some reports out of European carriers. Bottom line is that the carrier  business relationships and agreements are already in place for adding new product.

Carriers are looking for a third platform to add to their Apple and Android offerings. Carriers are obviously impressed with its performance. The key point is that RIM can continue to leverage these legacy relationships for a rapid worldwide launch and the carriers are responding positively.

Enterprise

Three key points:

RIM has been working with many of their enterprise customers to evaluate new enterprise services such as BlackBerry 10 Enterprise Server 10, incorporating BlackBerry Fusion. Replacing the legacy BlackBerry Enterprise Server with support for BlackBerry 10, it also takes over BlackBerry Mobile Fusion which provides a path for managing, across the enterprise, not only BlackBerry devices but also Apple and Android devices in this BYOD world.

BlackBerry Balance is another differentiating feature that allows users to work with both “Personal” and “Work” profiles. The latter is under corporate or enterprise control and provides access to enterprise supported applications along with the appropriate security. On the Personal side users can build their own BlackBerry 10 ecosystem with applications they want to use, including Facebook and Twitter. Switching between profiles occurs simply by a downward gesture and selecting the profile’s tab. RIM has built in the deep level security required to keep each of these profiles fully isolated.

Finally BlackBerry 10 received FIPS security certification prior to its official release. This maintains RIM’s unique position with respect to selling into government security agencies worldwide.

Public Relations

At the RIM AGM a couple of years ago the then-executives were asked by a shareholder why RIM could not create the level of hype associated with an Apple product launch (at the time involving the late Steve Jobs).

Following a rather stormy annual general meeting last July, new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins and his public relations team commenced a proactive program to take control of the RIM and BlackBerry message that was getting out to the press. Eight months later reporters, analysts and social media are recognizing that RIM is focused on a well-defined strategy for launching BlackBerry 10 leading into new mobile computing experiences. No more reports about considering alternative operating systems, business models or other attempts to reorganize RIM based only on its legacy assets. RIM is a unique business case study; there is no precedence in the technology  marketplace.

It has been an uphill battle focused on positioning BlackBerry 10 as a significantly differentiated smartphone that would create a new user experience. Today there is not a technology writer or publication who is not at least aware of the pending BlackBerry 10 launch; many have had the opportunity of a preview demonstration. And at a time when no other major smartphone announcements are anticipated, RIM should have the full attention of the business and technology media worldwide for its launch events in Toronto, New York, London and three other cities worldwide.

BlackBerry 10 will have the equivalent, if not more, exposure to any Apple launch event. Given the level of detail RIM has gone into to build the appropriate infrastructure, distribution channels and applications ecosystem, only the final details of the device itself need to be released, along with a device release schedule.

The launch event is being followed up by BlackBerry Experience Forums in 14 cities worldwide during February and March.

Congratulations are due to the entire RIM team for turning RIM into a world class mobile computing company. Regardless of the outcome, this will become a textbook case study for a turn around in the technology industry.

Bottom line: The infrastructure is coming together; however, there remain questions that will be answered at the launch event. The final post in this series will cover some of the pending questions:

• BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Questions

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of RIM shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in RIM organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been on a tear for the past few days since I started drafting this series I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

• sticking to the original product vision behind the QNX acquisition,
• restructuring and realigning the company to support a new operating system,
• recruiting and building a C-level executive team with world class experience,
• taking control of the message being propagated through the media, and finally
• building the infrastructure required for the successful launch of a new smartphone product into a very competitive and high profile market.

We are now eight days from the January 30 launch event date. And based on my previous experience with selling multi-tasking products, managing both hardware and software subsidiaries, participating in what was initially the successful restructuring of a NASDAQ-listed company and working with startups I want to share my outline of not only why  BlackBerry 10 will be a success story but also why RIM will be able to vector off into a unique market positioning in the future.

This post is the first of a three part series that will go out this week covering: The Preamble, The Main Story and The Questions.

RIM’s core DNA

It all starts with a Tweet I found last night that uniquely summarizes RIM’s current DNA. For almost 30 years QNX has been developing a multi-tasking, multi-threading real time operating system robust enough to run nuclear power plants, power GM’s OnStar service and replace Cisco’s iOS in their routers. Meanwhile over the past 19 years RIM was building expertise in mobile technology, including not only efficient handling of wireless messaging and data but also doing it securely.

Two recent posts articulate why QNX is really the core to RIM’s future:

In RIM – BB10 True End-Game is QNX & NOC!, Dono at Serious Mobile provides a comprehensive picture of why QNX is the core of RIM’s future:

Some still are not sure why RIM chose to purchase QNX just over a 1.5 years ago. To them I say do a little research. QNX is a true, real-time OS! But [what] real-life benefits does QNX offer us? Most people do not see QNX let alone know it exists until RIM started using it in press releases about BB10.

QNX software is used in embedded systems all around us – yet it’s not limited to embedded systems. Automobile (cars & trucks) CPU’s and infotainment applications,medical devices, nuclear reactors/management systems, parking meters, credit card machines, ticket booths and much more which I’ll get to shortly.

A post in RIM’s own developer blog, You’re Already Using BlackBerry 10: Living QNX, outlines specific examples of QNX deployment in today’s market. The QNX Bentley concept car at CES 2013 gave a demonstration of what the future can be for automotive information, entertainment and control systems, demonstrating not only GPS but features such as video calling and self-diagnostics. In fact, they also demonstrated a BlackBerry 10 application capable of providing some “remote” interaction with the car’s features:

Bentley panel with GPS and calling. Note the analog clock whose outside ring  can actually server as a volume control	BlackBerry 10 controlling locks, trunk, horn, sun roof, lights, temperature and music

The long term future for RIM beyond BlackBerry 10 lies with leveraging QNX for machine to machine interactions (M2M), including a significant role for BlackBerry 10.

The Fundamentals for Success

However, with that background, lots has happened in preparation for the BlackBerry 10 launch – the key foundation piece to realizing RIM’s future. When I was involved on the restructuring management team of a utility software company we had five key assets:

• a well-known brand name (with a reputation for multi-tasking under DOS)
• an established and loyal customer base of several million users
• a restructured company team that was enthusiastic and committed to success
• an established distribution channel that could readily ship new product
• a new product under development that could be launched in a timely manner

Within six months the company was back to profitability. However, this was a much less complex situation than what RIM encountered. Their key assets include:

• a well known brand name and reputation (but challenged as a result of some recent product issues)
• 80 million users, of whom 60 million use a key “networking” or “bonding” feature called BlackBerry Messenger
• a strong loyalty within that customer base as demonstrated on Twitter, blog posts and even comments to posts in the media
• a visionary new product under development that could significantly change the user experience
• an established carrier distribution channel that can readily ship new products
• strongly focused leadership at the CxO level
• a very keen RIM team enthusiastically supporting the mission and vision
• $2.9 billion in cash

In summary – a startup’s dream scenario.

In my follow up posts I’ll talk about why I feel BlackBerry 10 will be a success story (along with a few caveats).

• BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Main Story
• BlackBerry 10: Recipe for a Successful Launch – The Questions

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of RIM shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone and tablet market. These observations are based on publicly available information combined with his own past business experience at senior management levels in high technology markets. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in RIM organizations around the world.

Given that RIM stock has been on a tear for the past few days since I started drafting this series I can only say check with your investment advisor before taking any action. These posts are for information purposes only.

Related articles

• QNX shows what the future may hold – Some very amazing stuff! (crackberry.com)

  ---

• Dan Dodge shows off the QNX Bentley concept car at CES (crackberry.com)

  ---

• If BlackBerry 10 is a hit, a lot of credit will go to RIM’s founders (business.financialpost.com)

  ---

When it became available Dan York made a test call with me and reported on it. Again excellent voice quality once the connection is made. In effect the “Free Call” button previously reported as inactive for Dan has become active. (There is no upgrade to the Messenger application involved; still using version 2.1.)

During a call the iPhone’s speakerphone can be used and you can go to other applications while having access to the call via a red bar across the top of the screen

But Dan also reports on the on huge caveat (and the difficulty I encountered when it was first available to Canadians):

It is difficult to find someone to call because:

• it is limited to iOS devices
• the other party must have Messenger running on her/his iPhone
• It does not link into Facebook for iOS itself.

So the real question boils down to one of who would reasonably be using it:

• Messenger itself needs more visibility and awareness as a Facebook app independent of the main Facebook app
• Will it become available on other platforms, such as Android and even the forthcoming BlackBerry 10?
• Will the service be made available outside Canada and the United States?
• Will it be integrated into the main Facebook application?
• The original integration of the Skype infrastructure into Facebook does not appear to have much traction; certainly there have been few, if any, reports on its use.

Bottom Line: we are continuing to see attempts at free voice calling services via various applications. RIM recently upgraded their BlackBerry Messenger to include BBM Voice (over WiFi only for about 60 million BBM users).  Yet we see little extension of these services to end points beyond smartphones and, sometimes, PC’s.

The long term underlying question, however, remains what will be in the impact of acceptance of a WebRTC standard – where calling can be embedded into the browser?  The debate for standardization continues.

2013 will prove to be a landmark year for the evolution of IP-based communications.

While attending CES 2013 I had the opportunity to watch and capture a demonstration of RIM’s forthcoming BlackBerry 10 given by Jeff Gadway, Senior Product Marketing Manager at RIM. Comments will come after the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sNvEfyBwKU

The demonstration is fairly self-explanatory; however, a few comments:

• Notice that Jeff did the entire demonstration using only his right hand. Makes it easy to deal with your communications and smartphone activity while carrying on other activities (other than driving an automobile).
• All activity is launched via gestures; there is no “Home” or “Start” button.
• As pointed out BlackBerry 10 has no Messaging application. BlackBerry Hub takes advantage of QNX’s robust multi-tasking features to allow email, social networking and calendar activity to run continuously in the background, readily available via a single “up and right” gesture. This includes dealing with time sensitive information, such as schedules and weather applications.
• It’s also QNX’s multi-tasking and multi-threading support that allows the smooth flow between applications, updates of the home screen and BlackBerry Hub.
• As for the soft keyboard, I can only say that I built up a 100 character sentence in fewer than 20 keystrokes.
• Most impressive is the ability to easily switch between Work and Personal modes. Work mode has the constraints of employer policy with respect to both applications and security issues but with a single gesture you can switch over to personal mode where you have total control over the applications you want on a smartphone, including Facebook and Twitter.

There are sections where non-relevant images are covered up; I am not the world’s most experienced video producer. RIM’s PR person in attendance may occasionally be seen.

Not shown in the demonstration, largely because it is still coming together, was the BlackBerry 10 App World; however, RIM’s goal is to launch with over 70,000 applications. With over 20,000 applications added via two port-a-thons last week, they certainly are getting closer to this goal.

For the past year I have been using a Playbook from which one can get a feel for the flow and speed. In fact, due to its speed and multi-tasking, it has become my default device for checking email and tablet web browsing. BlackBerry 10 in many ways is an upgrade and extension of the Playbook experience; however, I look forward to the Playbook’s transition from the Playbook operating system to the BlackBerry 10 operating system shortly after the BlackBerry 10’s launch.

In a future post I’ll discuss why I feel the BlackBerry 10 has significant potential for success, including some other information picked up at CES. The BlackBerry 10 application pictured on the right is just one reason.

Full disclosure: the author has a small holding of RIM shares. But he also has iOS and Android devices in order to experience a cross section of the smartphone market. His main interest is in seeing several thousand jobs maintained in not only the Canadian economy but also in RIM organizations around the world.

Related articles

• RIM launches final BlackBerry 10 ‘Portathon’ event (news.cnet.com)

  ---

• You’re Already Using BlackBerry 10: Living QNX (blogs.blackberry.com)

  ---

Also note that RIM continued to be a major sponsor of Blue Jays games on Rogers Sportsnet during the 2012 season; Rogers also owns the Blue Jays.

Obviously Major League Baseball has seen BlackBerry users as a significant revenue source in the past. Despite the current decline in the North American Blackberry user base, they view BlackBerry 10 as a significant potential revenue source for At Bat 2013. (Recall those surveys pointing out that BlackBerry app publishers actually make more revenues than iOS and Android publishers.) As a result it is no surprise that they sent their email list a promotional email for BlackBerry 10 yesterday, effectively all but  announcing that At Bat 2013 for BlackBerry 10 is coming:

Clicking on the image takes you to RIM’s BlackBerry 10 overview promotional site with links to stories about features such as the unique keyboard, BlackBerry Hub and the super fast browser. Combined with links to reviews and news stories, it’s definitely a “go-to” site for an overview of what RIM and third parties see as the key features of BlackBerry 10.

Two comments:

• Hopefully, purchasing MLB.com’s At Bat 2013 for Blackberry will allow use of the subscription on both the Playbook and BlackBerry 10
• A few emails later I received another email from MLB.com promoting Big Data cloud computing on EMC. Seems like MLB.com has been providing access to their permission-based email list to other supported vendors as well. Given baseball’s historic association with a mountain of statistics on almost a pitch-by-pitch basis, they are an obvious user of Big Data via the cloud.

Related articles

• Major League Baseball gets behind BlackBerry 10 with some email promotion (crackberry.com)

  ---

I belong to a fitness club where Jeff Johnson (#33) was one of the former instructors; he has just completed his eleventh season with the Toronto Argonauts (and is, in fact, their longest playing member of a team that has had its ups and downs over that time). Two weeks ago the Argonauts came from second place in the Eastern Conference season standings to win the 100th Grey Cup game over the Calgary Stampeders 35-22. As a result Jeff was able to take the cup around for a day and dropped by my fitness club with the cup.

So what does this have to do with Skype? I overheard one of the club members at the reception, Garry, talking about using Skype video so that a wanderlust friend could see the game half-way around the world.

Garry’s friend Doug is a very dedicated Argonaut fan (yes, they have a strongly loyal fan base in the Toronto area). Garry usually spends his winters in Florida while Doug is vacationing in Mexico; they often use Skype to keep in touch during their vacations. However, on the day of the game, Doug was in Singapore visiting his son for a couple of months while Garry was still at home in Mississauga (Toronto).

As the game time approached on November 26 Garry and Doug were on a Skype video call using Garry’s iPad 2. Initially they discussed receiving game updates verbally as the game progressed. However, Garry then realized he should try to set the iPad up on a chair capturing his 52” HDTV screen’s video and audio. They positioned the chair such that the iPad captured the full TV screen. Doug, his wife and son were then able to watch the game live on his son’s desktop PC in Singapore. Not exactly a SlingBox setup but it was more than acceptable for viewing.

Last Argonauts touchdown play – credit to TSN

During commercials they muted the TV audio and discussed the game. The Skype connection dropped three or four times over the three hour period but they were quickly able to recover. Garry says that the overall experience was almost as if the five of them (Garry and his wife in Mississauga and Doug’s family in Sinagpore) were sitting in the same room.

Garry was on Rogers Express Internet service with 25GB download speed and 2MBps upload, more than sufficient for Skype High Quality Video.

Bottom line: The iPad is becoming a major device for convenient Skype calling. It is definitely becoming the default communications mode for travelers; several friends have taken their iPad on vacations as their sole source of communications to friends and relatives back home, whether in Costa Rica, Scotland or at Whistler, B.C. But this story serves as one more example of the level to which innovative users will use Skype video for unique occasions; previous examples include weddings where plans are forced to change at the last minute due volcanoes or medical emergencies. And it’s one more example of WiFi becoming the “stealth” carrier.

As this was personal use only, and into a location where the game was not otherwise available, one would have to assume this does not violate any copyright regulations.