Tag Archives: ShareholderMeeting

BlackBerry confirms one BB7-based phone shipping later this year

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BlackBerry Bold 9720 leak

BlackBerry may see BB10 as the future of the company, but it isn't breaking with the past quite yet. Thorsten Heins just told those at BlackBerry's annual shareholder meeting that there will be one BB7-based phone this year. While he didn't elaborate further, there's a good chance he's referring to the Bold 9720 that reportedly leaked just hours ago. Don't expect a wide resurgence of BB7 devices, however. Heins mentioned that BlackBerry won't have more than six devices on sale at a time, and most of those slots will be occupied by BB10 hardware.

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Source: BlackBerry

Microsoft selling four times as many Windows Phones as a year ago, won’t say what that means

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Microsoft selling four times as many Windows Phones as last year, won't say what that means

It's no secret that Windows Phone sales have been in the doldrums for much of the platform's existence. If we believe Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer's talk at the annual company shareholder meeting, however, the mobile OS has turned a corner. He tells investors that Windows Phone sales are about four times what they were at the same point last year, and that demand has been strong enough for initial sellouts in "many countries;" that may be an allusion to reported Lumia 920 shortages in Germany and Nokia's native Finland, among other regions. Ballmer is quick to point to more competitive hardware as triggering the sales spike. The news is certainly positive on the whole, although we'd warn that Microsoft is pulling an Amazon -- that is, declining to offer the shipment numbers that would give its grandiose claims some context. It's easy to tout record growth when you're starting from a small point, so we'll refrain from calling Windows Phone the Comeback Kid until market share estimates show otherwise.

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Source: Bloomberg

RIM CEO hints at future BBM video chat feature

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RIM CEO hints at future BBM video chat feature

During today's shareholder meeting RIM CEO Thorsten Heins hinted that BBM, the companies celebrated group messaging service, might be getting some significant upgrades with the debut of BB10. In particular, the words "video chat" were tossed out as an example of how it planned to keep pace with the evolving mobile landscape. In response to a shareholder question, Heins said:

"BBM is a very, strong platform... With upgrading it into a new experience, think about adding features on BB10 such as video chat, for example, within BBM. There's many other features to come with BB10 that will really level this BBM experience... which will upgrade that experience to a whole new social networking experience based on BBM... we want to use this to build a BlackBerry-driven social networking platform."

So, does that mean BlackBerry is getting ready to take on Skype and Google? Perhaps. It would certainly make sense, but we'd stop short calling it a sure shot. What is clear, is that Heins really wants to push BlackBerry as the "social" platform focused on "experience" and seems content to let those other mobile OSes win the apps race.

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RIM CEO hints at future BBM video chat feature originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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