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Last Friday, RIM was scheduled to release BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 SP5. The main feature touted by RIM in this release was the ability to view HTML-based and Rich Text emails. That’s a rather significant update, and it had many people rather happy. Yes, the text-only emails serve their purpose, but as more and more email clients adopt HTML rendering, it seems that it’s the next natural progression for the BlackBerry. Of course, this isn’t official. But it does follow a certain line of logic. We might not be seeing HTML emails until SP6 is released.
Read the rest of Has RIM pulled HTML email from BES SP5?…

I keep reading articles about how the iPhone will soon be the smartphone of choice for businesses. I have yet, though, to find a really compelling reason why. Yes, they might be getting Exchange support, but even then they have a lot of ground to make up to get to RIM. Remember, that’s just one phone, while RIM has a line of phones that suit various business and personal needs. In any case, a recent survey by ChangeWave Research has RIM far atop the corporate smartphone purchases.
Read the rest of BlackBerry still tops in corporate world…

Surely you’re familiar with the recent unlimited plans rolled out by the four major U.S. cell carriers. Verizon and AT&T have basic, $99 unlimited calling plans. T-Mobile adds unlimited text messaging to the same price. Late last week, Sprint announced their version of the $99 plan, which includes voice, text, and data. This includes BIS service, though excludes BES packages, which cost an extra $20 per month. This announcement by Sprint could change the game, though. What if every carrier offered unlimited BIS, voice, and SMS for $99 per month? We’d see a lot more BlackBerry subscribers, right?
Read the rest of Unlimited plans could bolster BlackBerry sales…

Research In Motion recently said that it expected to add 1.82 million customers to its BlackBerry line of smartphones during its fourth fiscal quarter, which ends next week. That’s a rather aggressive forecast, considering all of Verizon Wireless added 2.0 million customers in its fourth quarter. That’s an entire wireless carrier — second largest in terms of subscribers in the U.S. — that RIM is approaching. (Though not in total; Verizon has 63.7 million subscribers total.) Now, however, the forecast has changed…in the positive. They now expect to add 15 to 20 percent more than that (!!).
Read the rest of RIM exceeding subscriber expectations…

Yay. Just what I want to talk about this morning: Another BIS outage. This one didn’t seem to be as widespread as the one from last week. This one, though, didn’t get to the corporate users, who have an Enterprise server backing them up. So clearly there’s a bit less of an outrage. Still, even a small outage is not good news for RIM right now, who is still trying to stave off the slew of media-posed questions regarding the company’s reliability. And it doesn’t help that they claimed that it was the result of maintenance.
Read the rest of Problems reported with BIS on Wednesday…

I always have to think these kinds of lawsuits are kind of suspect. The BlackBerry has been out for how long now? Since 2000, 2001. And it’s been a smash hit since 2003. And Motorola decides they’re going to file a patent infringement suit now? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be unfairly biased against Motorola right from the get-go. But it’s simply hard to believe a lawsuit like this when it’s filed so far after the fact…and on the heels of speculation that Motorola might not be too happy with it’s mobile phone division.
Read the rest of Motorola sues RIM, RIM returns the favor…

You might be a bit confused by that headline. When you hear the term “social networking” surely the first things that come to mind are MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and the numerous social applications available on the web. Certainly, these are not thought of as primary business tools. Yes, some people promote themselves through these media, but that relates mainly to entertainment and the arts. BlackBerry-toting businessmen typically aren’t associated with these platforms. Yet they may just be the future of business.
Read the rest of RIM: Social networking the future…

I caught an article today on ZDNet talking about new devices on the way this year, and the fact that they could lead to a decline in BlackBerry sales. Specifically, they were talking about HTC, makers of the vaunted Touch, and of course the iPhone. Also thrown in there is the mobile internet device being developed by Intel, which is basically a mini mini laptop. Still, I have a hard time believing that any of these will significantly cut into RIM’s sales this year.
Read the rest of Are competitors catching up to RIM?…

So yes, the business world is abuzz with Research In Motion’s Monday BlackBerry outage. People want to know why this happened. Furthermore, they want to know why it won’t happen again. According to RIM, it was due to an upgrade which was meant to increase capacity across the network. Other upgrades of this type haven’t caused an outage in the past, so the company is confident that it will not occur again in the future.
Read the rest of BlackBerry outage due to upgrade…

This isn’t just a report — it’s coming straight from Research In Motion. They’ve acknowledged that BlackBerry service was down yesterday. Service reportedly returned to some capacity by 5:30 p.m. It should be back to normal by now. According to RIM support account manager Bryan Simpson, the outage affected “business clients and ‘users of the Americas network’.” I was running some errands around that time, and noticed no missed emails. A few actually came through, I believe, but that could have been prior to 3 p.m., when the outage was acknowledged.

Anyone still having problems?