The BlackBerry Pearl
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I take it all back Confessions of an analyst A couple of months, I committed the cardinal sin of criticising a mobile device without actually having used one. When I posted my initial reaction to the BlackBerry 8100 âPearlâ here, I was bothered by the thought that RIM had sold out its loyal business users by bowing to the pressure of the consumer market and cluttering the most effective mobile email product line available today with a gimmicky track-ball and trivialities such as a camera and media player.â¦
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Research In Motion said today it is pushing into a wider consumer market with the Pearl, its first phone with a camera and music player.
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By JOHN LEICESTER PARIS - BlackBerry handhelds have been called addictive, invasive, wonderful - and now, a threat to French state secrets.
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RIM jazzes up its line of handhelds with fun colors and Facebook links.
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The company behind the BlackBerry, the wireless email service many Americans now cannot live without, unveiled Tuesday plans for a new version of the device for workaholic Japan.
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Research in Motion (RIM)&#160;is stepping up its game against Microsoft, Nokia, and other rivals with several enhancements to its BlackBerry software that it will showcase at Lotusphere this week.The updates, coming in new BlackBerry devices and device and server software versions in the first half of this year, will strengthen the platform&#39;s core e-mail capability while adding new messaging, manageability, and security features.RIM pioneered enterprise handheld connectivity with the BlackBerry&#39;s push e-mail system and BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server). Competitors have since muscled in on this territory, while RIM has invested in software and devices to expand its appeal to the consumer market. With the new features, the company is looking toward a future in which almost all communication capabilities on the desktop are available on the road through a set of capabilities often called unified communications.Among key new capabilities are features that merge voice with instant messaging. Users who run IBM Lotus Sametime or Microsoft Live Communications Server will be able to click on an IM contact on the BlackBerry phone in order to call them or convert an ongoing IM session into a voice call. They will also be able to check whether their colleagues are going to be available before they send out meeting requests.Enhanced e-mail handling will include several new features. Users will be able to search for and retrieve messages on their enterprise e-mail servers that are no longer stored on their BlackBerries. Also, the devices will be able to render HTML and rich text e-mail messages, including font colors and styles, images, hyperlinks, and other elements. After downloading Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, users will now be able to edit them on the BlackBerry, thanks to Documents to Go software from DataViz that is being integrated into the mobile platform.Even within e-mail encrypted with PGP or S/MIME, BlackBerry users will be able to view attachments, according to the company.RIM also has some good news for enterprises that want to more easily manage and lock down their employees&#39; devices. They will be able to drill down and define which applications on a BlackBerry can access its GPS functionality as well as enable or shut down specific Bluetooth profiles and set how long the device is &quot;discoverable&quot; using Bluetooth. The less time a phone is discoverable by other Bluetooth devices, the less chance an intruder has to hack it, although this method of breaking into a phone hasn&#39;t been widely exploited.A Web-based device management console is also coming, allowing users to control settings and install software from any Web-connected computer. In addition, administrators will now be able to update users&#39; devices over the air.To help third parties develop their own applications for the BlackBerry, RIM also announced the availability of some additional Java Micro Edition APIs. They include ones to support developing mobile Web services clients, software that uses MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), and a single application that works for multiple languages and regions.RIM expects to ship its BES version 4.1.5 software for IBM Lotus Domino and for Microsoft Exchange by the end of February. They will be free upgrades for customers with BES version 4.1.0 or later, while others can buy the upgrade for $999 or purchase a Technical Support Services contract. The price of the BES for new customers will remain at $3,999 per server with 20 user licenses included.Version 4.5 of the BlackBerry device software will be required to use many of the end-user features; it will be available in the first half of the year, depending on carrier. It will be a free download from RIM and carrier Web sites. The ability to edit Word and PowerPoint documents will come with version 4.5, but Excel editing capability will be in a later release, expected in the latter part of this year.
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In what may someday may be nicknamed the MacBerry, Information Appliance Associates (IAA) announced this week a product called PocketMac BlackBerry, a synchronization application that will give RIM BlackBerry users the ability to do two-way synching of Mac and RIM data.
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Enter 'GoogleBerry' -- A a free download from Google lets BlackBerry users sync up with Google Calendar.
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RIM announces a series of updates for its BlackBerry platform.
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Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) (RIMM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , which popularized wireless e-mailing with its thumb-operated BlackBerry
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A new web site, Crackberry.com, was launched today to provide Blackberry users with access to information, accessories, blogs and user advice about the wireless email system.
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Now with Wi-Fi and other refinements Unwired Video Review Everyone knows that the Blackberry is de rigeuer for corporate types, but now RIM is making a real push to get the mobile email devices into the hands of consumers too. The Pearl 8120 builds on the original slimline Pearl and adds some cool new features - like Wi-Fi and a better camera.â¦
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The gadget-as-accessory craze continues as phone manufacturers whet the appetites of consumers with stylish product releases on a seemingly weekly basis. AT&T&#39;s Cingular Wireless is no exception. The company unwrapped two jewels yesterday: the new ruby-colored BlackBerry Pearl and the crimson Treo 680.
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The smart phone market will grow more crowded Wednesday with the debut of two devices directed at opposite ends of the customer spectrum: a BlackBerry for consumers with a newfangled
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Research In Motion RIM.TO said on   Monday it aims to offer a Japanese-language version of its   popular BlackBerry device between April and June 2007.
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Research In Motion (RIM) is demonstrating a new BlackBerry Wireless Handheld that operates on 802.11b networks and incorporates both voice and data capabilities.
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(InfoWorld) - Research In Motion has finally announcedÂ the BlackBerry 8800, the multimedia business handset whose details RIM leaked following Apple's iPhone announcement, apparently to offset the company's sliding stock price. The 8800 is RIM's most developed effort to date to combine theÂ Pearl 8100'sÂ consumer-oriented features in a package similar to the business-oriented 8700. In practice that means features such as integrated GPS, a 2.4-inch color screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, a high-capacity battery, and trackball navigation in a case wider (and slightly thinner) than the Pearl and noticeably thinner than the 8700. The QWERTY keyboard is designed to improve upon the Pearl's use of a numeric keypad with SureType, but the keys are a bit more cramped than those of the 8700, initial reviewers said. There are said to be models available with or without a camera. The built-in GPS can be used with included navigation software for an extra monthly fee. It has voice-activated dialing, a speakerphone, Bluetooth 2.0, a media player, and a microSD memory card slot, with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Wi-Fi. So far, Orange, Vodafone, and T-Mobile have all announced rollout plans for the device in Europe, while AT&T has an exclusive launch deal in the U.S. RIM's Competition The handset may be an improvement over previous BlackBerry models, but RIM now has other kinds of competition to worry about, particularly in the user-interface department. The company is rumored to be working on a complete interface overhaul with the BlackBerry 9000 series, but in the meantime Microsoft has launched Windows Mobile 6, and touch-screen phones areÂ on the way from Apple, Samsung (the Ultra Smart F700, announced ahead of 3GSM), and LG (the KE850 Prada phone). There are also other handsets such asÂ Samsung's BlackJackÂ that fall into a similar price bracket to the 8800 but offer 3G networking, something lacking in RIM's models. Push e-mail and GPS are also no longer unusual in higher-end handsets. "This handset will be extremely appealing to mobile professionals who have demanding work and social lives," said Charmaine Eggberry, RIM EMEA vice president and managing director, in a statement.