WATERLOO, Ont. – When your wares are "up for bid" on the Price is Right, as BlackBerrys have been, you know their maker, Research In Motion, is very committed to the mass consumer market.
Several announcements this week from the Canadian wireless handset manufacturer show how much RIM wants its BlackBerrys in the hands of regular consumers and not just in the suit coats and briefcases of businesspeople, long their bread-and-butter clientele.
The first announcement this week was the debut of the first BlackBerry flip phone, the Pearl Flip. Why is the company debuting a flip? Simple. People are used to their flips and like them a lot.
This week also saw a flurry of multimedia announcements from the company, including a partnership with personal video recorder manufacturer TiVo.
This new relationship is geared towards developing a variety of mobile entertainment services (er, TV) to BlackBerrys via TiVo boxes. (Which makes it more of a shame TiVos aren’t sold here). Initially, BlackBerry users will be able to see what shows are on, in the U.S. anyway, and schedule television recordings while away from the living room and on the go. Future collaboration between the companies will focus on software applications that further simplify mobile access to video content.
"TiVo subscribers will soon be able to wirelessly control their TiVo DVRs using a BlackBerry smart phone – anytime, anywhere – and that is a powerful example of how our respective technologies can complement each other to serve our mutual customers," said Jim Balsillie, RIM’s Co-CEO, in the release. "As the BlackBerry smart phone continues its evolution as a modern lifestyle device, the importance of home entertainment integration will continue to grow and TiVo will be the key in providing consumers with greater flexibility in accessing television content."
Certain cable companies, such as Videotron, already offer a way for customers to program their PVRs with their cell phones.
RIM isn’t just concentrating on video, however. It also announced a partnership with Slacker, where the company will provide a free Slacker Personal Radio application, exclusively for BlackBerrys, that will let users hear their favorite Slacker radio stations wherever they go – even when not connected to a wireless network. The application will be previewed this week at the BlackBerry booth (booth 614) at CTIA in San Francisco and was highlighted in this week’s CTIA keynote address by Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of RIM.
The Slacker application will provide BlackBerry smart phone users in the U.S. with personalized music discovery and listening experience pulling from over 100 expertly programmed Slacker stations, over 10,000 artist stations or their own custom-created stations.
Slacker’s caching technology will allow listeners to access Personal Radio stations using their BlackBerry smart phones without having to manage playlists, research new artists or scuffle with software again. The Slacker application for BlackBerry smart phones will work with Free Slacker Basic Radio and Slacker Premium Radio.
"From the inception of Slacker, our mission has been to give listeners the music they love wherever they are," said Dennis Mudd, CEO of Slacker. "Working with RIM allows us to provide our listeners with added flexibility and convenience to make the most of the Slacker Personal Radio service."
Next up was RIM’s announcement that it is getting together with social network MySpace to develop an integrated MySpace Mobile experience customized for BlackBerrys. The application will be made available in all BlackBerry markets globally and will be available this month.
RIM is also creating a BlackBerry community page on MySpace for users to access the latest company news, content, videos, games, ringtones, skins and other features.
Finally RIM also announced it is working together with Microsoft to integrate rich Live Search capabilities into the BlackBerry browser and BlackBerry Maps.
Users will be able to use Microsoft Live Search as their search engine of choice within the BlackBerry Browser as well as access Live Search on Mobile.BlackBerry.com. Live Search will leverage the wireless data optimization capabilities of the BlackBerry solution to deliver results quickly while users are on the go. BlackBerry smart phone customers will also be able to use Live Search to perform contextual, location-sensitive searches or look for nearby points of interest from inside BlackBerry Maps.
This functionality will be available later this year.
