Mobile Industry News

Back in October, we announced that Research In Motion were Beta testing an online service that would allow companies that employ Microsoft Office 365, to extend their Microsoft Exchange Online capabilities to BlackBerry Smartphones.

After months of testing, this week RIM have launched it for prime use. The service, which comes at no additional cost, allows for remote management of devices, such as resetting passwords and locking down handsets, as well as synchronization of Exchange email, contacts and calendars. continue

The board of directors of Research in Motion, the makers of BlackBerry, announced yesterday that on the recommendations of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, Thorsten Heins will take over as head of the company. Mr. Heins was also appointed to RIM’s Board.

Mike Lazaridis will become Vice Chair of RIM’s Board and Chair of the Board’s new Innovation Committee, while Jim Balsillie will still remain a member of the board. continue

Research In Motion has announced a new enterprise mobility solution called BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, and in doing so, has entered into the multi-platform Mobile Device Management marketplace.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, currently in the early stages of being beta tested, will simplify the management of not just BlackBerrys and PlayBooks, but also phones and tablets running Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. Basically this will bring the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and new management capabilities of PlayBooks together with management of Android and iPhones under one solution. continue

Research In Motion today announced two new additions to its BlackBerry 7 OS handset range: the touch and QWERTY BlackBerry Bold 9790 and the all-touch BlackBerry Curve 9380 smartphones. continue

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphones are the first SIM-based NFC smartphones to be certified by MasterCard Worldwide as PayPass-approved devices, according to an announcement by Research In Motion.

The certification was granted on the basis of the BlackBerry smartphones meeting the functionality, interoperability and security requirements of MasterCard.  With this certification, any MasterCard PayPass-issuing bank globally will be able to deploy MasterCard PayPass-enabled accounts to the SIM card of these smartphones.  continue

Sony has announced it that will acquire Ericsson’s 50 percent share in their Sony Ericsson mobile phone joint venture, turning the company into a subsidiary in January 2012.

In an official press release, Sony said that Ericsson will receive €1.05 billion for its stake in Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. The transaction will most likely be completed by the beginning of 2012. Included in the deal are sets of related patents as well as cross-licensing agreements for various intellectual properties.

Since 2001, both brands have released their line-up of phones under the Sony Ericsson banner. The new deal will allow Sony to better integrate its new and existing mobile phones to compete more easily with Samsung and Apple’s mobile offerings. continue

Research In Motion announced this week BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 – a new RIM-hosted online service for mid-sized businesses and enterprises that extends Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry smartphones, and allows organisations to self-manage their BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. An open beta for the service is launching today in over 30 countries. continue

Vodafone this week have notified all users of its 360 synchronisation and cloud backup service that it will be closing it down at the end of the year. continue

During its BlackBerry DevCon 2011 conference on Tuesday this week, Research In Motion announced that the next generation of BlackBerry devices will run a new operating system based on the QNX OS used on the PlayBook tablet.

Named BBX-OS, it seeks to bring together tablet and smartphone operating systems into one software package. This will free up software developers from having to create different versions of the same app for separate operating systems.

Details of this development as well as other announcements made at the conference can be found in this press release.

BlackBerry services buzzed back to life Thursday after a three-day outage that interrupted email messages and Internet services for millions of customers.

BlackBerry users around the world have faced huge problems over the past few days getting and receiving emails and messages, as well as launching Internet services. continue