New India only BlackBerry 9220 launched for Rs 10990/-

Blackberry is really trying hard to regain lost traction in the Indian Mobile market. After several price drops the company is now considering desperate measures, and in the said attempt has launched a new mobile device for India. The new Blackberry 9220 belongs to the curve class, and is know as the “most affordable” Blackberry, priced at Rs. 10990 (US $ 219).
Whats more the company is adding in a free set of apps worth Rs. 2500  (about $50) if you get on board before June 30th. This unique blackberry also has a FM radio and Wifi capabilities, but is lacking a 3G radio. You also get a 2MP (no flash) camera and 512MB of Ram, an expandable microSD slot. The display is a 2.44 inch 240×320 px LCD and the battery is a fairly big 1450 mAh.

BlackBerry Still Beats Android on Security

RIM's BlackBerry remains the clear leader in mobile security with market share leader Android lagging badly, a "strengths and weakness" analysis of the four big platforms has concluded.


Enterprise Readiness of Consumer Mobile Platforms rated each platform on the basis of a number of criteria, including general device security, app security, code signing, authentication, device wipe ability, firewalling, and virtualisation, assigning each category a score out of five. (See also "Smartphone Security: How to Keep Your Handset Safe.")

BlackBerry 7.0 came top with an average score of 2.89, ahead of Apple's iOS with 1.7; Windows Phone 7 at 1.61; and Android 2.3 with 1.37; an order that corresponds roughly to the age of each platform.

Given how long it has been around, Android scored relatively poorly, the younger Windows Phone relatively well. BlackBerry has a long history in the business market -- the others emerged as consumer platforms -- but will nevertheless feel affirmed by its strong showing in manageability and corporate device control.

"Although Android is now available in more recent versions (4.x), version 2.x is still the most widely deployed on existing and new handsets. This is a security risk in itself; there is no central means of providing operating system updates, meaning that many users remain unprotected from critical vulnerabilities for a prolonged period," note the authors, echoing a sentiment that Google must have grown exhausted hearing from around the industry.

Importantly, the report has no direct connection to any of the platforms discussed and was researched by Altimeter Group and Bloor Research on behalf of security company Trend Micro.

"Against the growing, unstoppable backdrop of consumerisation and BYOD [bring your own device], every mobile device is a risk to business," said Trend Micro CTO, Raimund Genes.

"There is still a strong 'consumer marketing' legacy in some quarters and this is negating some of the progress made on the enterprise front. Indeed, some of the attributes we have examined in the report are still firmly 'enterprise-unready.'"

What matters now is the extent to which each platform can continue to evolve and mature. Android undoubtedly can while the BlackBerry's market struggles open its future to some doubt.

RIM recently botched an announcement which appeared to draw back from consumer device development in favour of its traditional business market. The question is whether such a division is any longer meaningful in an age driven by the BYOD Trend Micro's report highlights. The once distinct consumer and business markets could have merged into one.

One winner could be Microsoft, a company with decades of experience serving businesses and plenty of popular enterprise software to help it push Windows Phone.

Both Windows Phone 7.5 and Android 2.3 remain weak in core applications such as business messaging, however, scoring zero is almost every category analyzed

BBM Might Come to Android and iOS This Year

The BlackBerry messenger or BBM for android has shown up in works, expected to be announced officially by the end of this year.

Research in Motion (RIM) the makers of BlackBerry smartphones had announced the interconnectivity of popular social networking application such as Facebook and Twitter with BlackBerry messenger, with the release of Facebook for BlackBerry 3.0 and Twitter for BlackBerry 3.0 apps.
But interconnectivity is not just the only thing that the company is looking at. It seems that the company is further planning to expand its portfolio with the addition of its popular BBM service with android as well.
Technobufallo.com has caught hold of some images of BBM for Android version 0.8.87 running SitSLIP debugger 1.3.45 on a device with a 320 x 240-pixel resolution display.

BlackBerry had also very recently opted for android application to be ported to its tablet platform making several android applications available on the BlackBerry Playbook devices.

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BlackBerry Playbook announced – the dual-core tablet to rule them all

RIM might be having a bit of hard time adapting their smartphones to the rapidly changing market but it might turn out that it’s all because they have been focusing their efforts elsewhere. The company just entered the tablet market with a bang, announcing their 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook, running a new BlackBerry Tablet OS.

Coming with a SVGA (1024 x 600 pixels) multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, the PlayBook is the first tablet to sport a dual-core 1GHz CPU. And it makes quite good use of it too – both the front-facing and the primary camera of the device are capable of recording full HD video (yeap, that’s sweet 1080p footage) and on board the PlayBook has what RIM calls “true multitasking”. And with 1GB of RAM you are unlikely to have “out of memory” issues either.
But it doesn’t end there – there’s also Flash 10.1 and HTML5 support, microHDMI and microUSB ports and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n support. The primary camera can also take 5 megapixel stills, while the secondary one does 3MP. Secure Bluetooth connection is here too with 3G the only notable absentee. RIM are however promising 3G and even 4G versions of the tablet too.
All that goodness is packed in a body only 10mm thin and weighing 400 grams. Oh boy, is that exciting or what? Check out the official promo video of the new tablet.

Blackberry Messenger 6 is out, has become even more social

The Blackberry Messenger is among the finest proprietary mobile instant messaging services out there, with strong and dedicated crowd of followers. With the latest update of the app, the folks from RIM have kept all the familiar goodness, and added several new features, which have made the BBM even more social.

Now on with the new stuff. The Blackberry Messenger now features compatibility with some of your smartphone apps. They are dubbed as “BBM-connected”. You can communicate with your BBM friends directly from the app you are using, and invite them over to join your experience. There is also a new profile feed, which allows you to share game scores, etc., and click to download an app which someone else has shared.
All in all, it looks like RIM is seriously trying to make its users download and use more apps respectively. This is by all means a great idea, albeit one which should have been implemented a couple of years ago. It will be interesting to observe if this update of the Blackberry Messenger will help RIM in increasing the download rate of the apps for Blackberry OS, an area where the Canadian company is well behind the competition, as well as getting out of its recent troubles.
If you have already downloaded the new BBM version, feel free to share your experience in the comments section below. In case you are a Blackberry owner, and you still haven’t updated your messenger, hit the source link for download instructions.