Research In Motion announced this week that latest BlackBerry 7 devices have been granted Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC).

The 140-2 certification is recognized by the U.S. and Canadian governments and is required under the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 for devices to be used by government employees.

RIM has long produced extremely secure smartphones, which is why it has been the platform of choice financial and government workers for a decade. RIM’s PlayBook also achieved government clearance last summer making it the first tablet to get a security clearance.

Details of RIM’s press release can be found here.

Details of the security features of the BlackBerry smartphone can be found here.

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.

The service also support BlackBerry Balance, whereby BlackBerry smartphones can be set up to be used for business and personal purposes without compromise by separating the Enterprise and personal data within the handset.

Companies interested in this BlackBerry Cloud Service can find more information as well as details on how to register here.

A copy of RIM’s press release can be found here.

H­eins said in an interview with Bloomberg “The promotions won’t be about just simply money, they will also involve mobile apps”. “We have to do something dramatically different in the US to get our market share back”.

The company missed the shift in the US to more consumer-oriented features like web browsing and apps. It’s now focused on BB10, which the CEO said has already attracted licensing interest. The company has held discussions with interested handset makers and personal-computer makers, he said, declining to name them.

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.

Mr. Lazaridis said, “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now.  With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond.  Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”

Mr. Balsillie backed up Mike by saying “I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company,” he said. “I remain a significant shareholder and a Director and, of course, they will have my full support.”

Thorsten Heins has been a member of RIM for 4 years. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer, Product Engineering, overseeing the BlackBerry smartphone portfolio world-wide. Prior to joining RIM in 2007, Thorsten held several positions in the wireless arena including the Chief Technology Officer of Siemens’ Communications Division and several general management positions in Hardware and Software businesses. He comes with more than 27 years of experience in telecommunications and consumer electronic devices.

“Mike and Jim took a bold step 18 months ago when RIM purchased QNX to shepherd the transformation of the BlackBerry platform for the next decade,” Mr. Heins said.  “We are more confident than ever that was the right path. It is Mike and Jim’s continued unwillingness to sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain which has made RIM the great company that it is today.  I share that philosophy and am very excited about the company’s future.”

More details of RIM’s press release can be found here.

Safe mode is designed to allow troubleshooting or remove any unwanted applications and can also be used to prevent third-party applications from running automatically when starting the BlackBerry® smartphone.

To start-up a BlackBerry® Storm™ and BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry Device Software 4.6 – 5.0  in Safe Mode, complete the following steps:

1. Remove and reinsert the BlackBerry smartphone battery.

2. When the red LED (Light-Emitting Diode) goes out, press and hold the Escape key until the loading screen appears then release the Escape key.

3. When the Smartphone boots up the Safe Mode disclaimer listed below appears, click OK to dismiss the disclaimer.

To start-up a BlackBerry® Storm™ 2 and BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry® 6 and BlackBerry® 7 to 7.1 in Safe Mode complete the following steps:

1. Remove and reinsert the BlackBerry smartphone battery.

2. Once the loading bar is displayed on the screen of the BlackBerry smartphone, press and hold the Escape key until you hear beeping or the loading bar completes then release the Escape key.

3. When the Smartphone boots up the Safe Mode disclaimer listed below appears, click OK to dismiss the disclaimer.

Safe Mode Disclaimer message:

Your device is currently in Safe Mode. Your device starts in Safe Mode if you hold the Escape key during startup. To remain in Safe Mode, click OK. To exit Safe Mode, click Reset.

NOTE: To turn off safe mode, remove and reinsert the BlackBerry smartphone battery. Safe mode enabled status is indicated by a safe mode indicator in the BlackBerry smartphone status section of the Home screen.

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“BlackBerry PlayBook is already recognized for delivering powerful performance, true multi-tasking, advanced web browsing and HD multimedia in an ultra-portable design,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “With BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 we are building on this strong foundation, as well as leveraging our strengths in communications, social integration and productivity, to allow people to use their BlackBerry PlayBook in new ways throughout the day.”

BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 functionality includes:

Advanced Messaging Experience:

• New unified inbox – a powerful unified inbox within the built-in messaging app allows users to quickly manage their personal email and work email accounts as well as the messaging capabilities of popular social networking sites like Twitter®, LinkedIn® and others – all in one place.
• Multi-tasking within email – by extending the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s multitasking capabilities to ‘tabbed email’, users are able to reference one email while they compose another.
• Rich-text email composing and editing – new features within the Messages app enable users to benefit from full support of fonts, formatting and editing of email threads, offering a robust email experience similar to that of a PC or laptop.
• Inbox management tools – allows for powerful inbox search across multiple email accounts, as well as the ability to set out-of-office messages and email signatures directly from their tablet.

Deep Integration of Social Relationships:

• Innovative people-centric calendar – in addition to standard calendar features that help users plan and organize their day, the powerful built-in Calendar app provides the unique ability for users to view their calendar by who they are meeting with that day and review valuable information about that contact. Information is consolidated automatically from social networking sites about that contact and/or their company.
• Relationship-centric contacts app – more than just an address book, the new built-in Contacts app serves as a social hub – merging and consolidating information from multiple sources (including email and social channels) into one contact file for each person in their address book.  Each contact file includes information such as recent status updates, conversations, related news articles and mutual contacts that are kept up-to-date automatically.

Making Your BlackBerry Smartphone and Tablet a Powerful Pair:

• Remote control for the BlackBerry PlayBook – new BlackBerry® Bridge™ features allow a user’s BlackBerry® smartphone to act as a keyboard and mouse for their BlackBerry PlayBook – effectively providing a wireless remote control for their tablet. Perfect for pausing a movie when a BlackBerry PlayBook is plugged in to a TV with an HDMI connection, or for using the tactile QWERTY keyboard on a BlackBerry smartphone to compose a message or document on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
• Opening content on the BlackBerry PlayBook – BlackBerry Bridge allows you to take documents, emails, multimedia files and web pages found on your smartphone and open them quickly and directly on the BlackBerry PlayBook so you can use the larger high resolution display for an optimized viewing and editing experience.

Improved Mobile Productivity:

• Updated document editing capabilities – updated Documents To Go® functionality makes it easier for users to create and edit documents while on the go. Improvements include: enhanced support for the virtual keyboard, the ability to view and update embedded charts and chart sheets within spreadsheets, a new formula wizard with over 100 functions as well as the ability to edit presentations including text, bullets and formatting.
• Print To Go application – this app allows users to wirelessly “print” from their laptop or PC directly to their BlackBerry PlayBook over Wi-Fi®. A digital printout is created on the BlackBerry PlayBook so that users can view, sort and manage their digital printouts as though they were physical sheets of paper. The Print To Go app is the perfect way to consolidate info from various related sources like a hotel web confirmation, an airline boarding pass email, the show event schedule or even a map of the destination city and make them available for quick access on the go.
• Increased control and manageability of corporate data – the combination of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and BlackBerry Balance will help to overcome many barriers to widespread tablet deployment, including device manageability and the ability to secure, manage and control confidential corporate information on the device. Plus BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 supports dedicated shelf space inside the BlackBerry® App World™ storefront to allow IT departments to control distribution of enterprise applications and to make those approved enterprise applications easily available to the organization’s end users.

New Apps and Content:

• Your favorite apps plus thousands more – many exciting new applications built for the BlackBerry PlayBook will be made available on BlackBerry App World with the availability of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0. From gaming and lifestyle to business and productivity, RIM is showcasing some of the latest apps available for the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES 2012 including Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Groupon, Thomson Reuters, Zinio and many more.
• Video store – a catalog of thousands of movies and TV shows will be available through the integrated BlackBerry Video Storefront* with new releases to be made available for purchase or rent the same day they come out on DVD. Users will be able to begin watching media as soon as they start to download the file, so users won’t have to wait for the entire file to transfer before they can enjoy great entertainment on the tablet’s high resolution display, or on an HDTV via the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s HDMI output.
• Enhanced web browsing – the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 browser also includes a new reading view, which is designed to make web sites even easier to enjoy by eliminating page clutter at the touch of a button. What’s left is a cleaner format that is great for reading online news articles, blog posts, or websites that contain heavy amounts of text.

Availability:

The BlackBerry® PlayBook OS 2.0 software update will be available as a free download for all BlackBerry PlayBook users and is expected to be available in February 2012.

* BlackBerry Video Store will initially be available in the United States. Support for other countries is expected to be added later this year.

BlackBerry 7.1 will begin rolling out from carriers around the world beginning today and over the coming weeks. The new releases of BBM, BlackBerry Traffic and BlackBerry Travel will be available on BlackBerry® App World™ beginning today.

“BlackBerry 7 delivered a next-generation platform for our customers around the world and the range of software updates announced today build upon the strengths of that platform to further enhance the mobile experience and make life easier, from managing daily tasks to planning big adventures,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

New features are:

• Mobile Hotspot: Turn your BlackBerry 7.1 OS device into a Wi-Fi® router anywhere, anytime! The new OS seamlessly provides Internet access for up to five Wi-Fi devices, including laptops and tablets.
• Universal Search: For this new release, we wanted to focus on the intelligence of our system and our apps – in other words, we wanted to create an intuitive experience that does the thinking for you. For example, Universal Search now has a new auto-suggest feature that that intelligently filters Bing® search results to offer you a variety of relevant Web sites based on your search terms.
• BlackBerry® Tag: Share contacts, media and files, and even invite friends to BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM) through a simple touch. BlackBerry Tag unlocks near field communication (NFC) capabilities for everyday use and makes sharing a lot faster and much more personal.
• Wi-Fi® Calling (where available): With BlackBerry 7.1 OS, you’ll be able to make Wi-Fi calls using your carrier’s Wi-Fi calling service (aka UMA-lite or GAN-lite). Wi-Fi calling allows you to save your talk time minutes and make phone calls over any Wi-Fi network. Not all carriers offer such a service so check with your carrier for availability (Not yet available in UK).
• FM Radio: The BlackBerry 7.1 OS update will let BlackBerry® Curve™ 9360 and 9380 smartphone customers enjoy FM radio. The Curve models include a built-in FM radio so you can tune in to local FM radio stations. Simply plug in your headset to boost the reception (it acts as the antenna). Plus, no data usage or data plan required!
• BlackBerry® Maps: When you launch the new BlackBerry Maps you’ll be able to discover special offers, coupons and discounts from nearby vendors – and, of course, you can act instantly by calling about the deal, finding the best route to get there, or grabbing the coupon code.

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To locate the SRP ID and SRP Authentication Key in the BlackBerry Configuration Database and the Cached Property file see KB02632.

To locate the SRP ID on the BlackBerry® smartphone, see KB05508.

During an SRP ID and SRP Authentication Key change the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server must successfully send a switch service command to all devices, resend IT Policy to all devices, and resend all Desktop Service Books to all devices.  This process can take up to 4 hours to complete and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server should not be restarted for at least 4 hours after the SRP ID and SRP Authentication key have been changed.

Use the appropriate methods for the version of BlackBerry Enterprise Server that is used.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0

To change the SRP ID and the SRP Authentication Key using the BlackBerry Administration Service, complete the following steps:

1. Open the BlackBerry Administration Service.
2. In the Server and Components menu, expand BlackBerry Solution Topology > BlackBerry Domain > Component View > BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
3. Click on the name of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
4. Click Edit Instance.
5. In the SRP Information section, remove the old SRP ID and the SRP Authentication Key and type the new SRP ID and SRP Authentication Key in.
6. Click Save All.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1

The SRP ID and the SRP authentication key are located in the BlackBerry Configuration Database. To locate the SRP ID and SRP authentication key using BlackBerry Manager, complete the following steps:

1. Open BlackBerry Manager.
2. Select BlackBerry Domain.
3. Select the Servers tab and then select the BlackBerry Enterprise Server name on the list.
4. Click Edit Properties.
5. The SRP ID and SRP authentication key are displayed on the General tab. To change the SRP ID and SRP authentication key, complete the following steps:
6. Confirm that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server services are started on the Windows® Services.
7. On the General tab, type the new SRP ID and SRP authentication key values in the appropriate fields. The SRP authentication key must include the hyphen ( – ).

Note: If using Microsoft® SQL Server® authentication for the BlackBerry Configuration Database, the authentication password must be specified to complete these steps.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.0

The SRP ID and the SRP authentication key are located in the BlackBerry Configuration Database. To locate the SRP ID and SRP authentication key using BlackBerry® Manager, complete the following steps:

1. Open BlackBerry Manager.
2. Click BlackBerry Domain.
3. Click the Server List tab and select the BlackBerry Enterprise Server name on the list.
4. Click Edit Properties.
5. Confirm that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server services are started on the Windows Services.
6. On the General tab, type the new SRP ID and SRP authentication key values in the appropriate fields. The SRP authentication key must include the hyphen ( – ).

Note: If using Microsoft SQL Server authentication for the BlackBerry Configuration Database, the authentication password must be specified to complete these steps.

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1.Once the SIM card has been moved over to the new BlackBerry smartphone running BlackBerry® 7 software and booted up go to the Email setup icon
2.Once the email settings application starts it will go through the following process:

• Checking for updates
• Prompt to enter the BlackBerry ID and Password
• Next there will be a prompt stating what will occur upon logging in
• Click the Ok button and it will verify the BlackBerry ID
• Next it will prompt to activate all email addresses currently integrated on the BlackBerry Internet Service account. The password will need to be entered for each integration to activate them and complete the migration a.Note If the password or secret question for their hosted email account is unknown follow the Hosted password reset process listed under CSO Process KB24162
• Once all email integration’s are activated the normal E-mail settings screen will be presented

3.After the BlackBerry Internet Service account has completed the migration the username in the BIS administration tool will simply state BlackBerry ID.

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Note: A reset of a BlackBerry smartphone does not delete any settings or data.

There are two options for performing a reset: a hard reset and a soft reset.
A hard reset involves physically removing the battery from the BlackBerry smartphone and then reinserting it. To perform a hard reset, complete the following steps:
1. Remove the battery cover from the back of the BlackBerry smartphone.
2. Remove the battery, and then reinsert it after a few seconds.
3. Replace the battery cover.

A soft reset is a three-key combination that resets the BlackBerry smartphone without removing the battery. It is only available on BlackBerry smartphone models with a QWERTY keyboard. Do not attempt to perform a soft reset on BlackBerry smartphones that are equipped with SureType® technology or the SurePress™ touch screen, such as the BlackBerry® Pearl™ Series, BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip Series, and BlackBerry® Storm™ smartphone.
To perform a soft reset, complete the following steps:
1. Press and hold the Alt key on the BlackBerry smartphone.
2. While holding down the Alt key, press and hold the Right Shift key.
3. With both of those buttons still pressed, press the Backspace/Delete key. The display on the BlackBerry smartphone turns off to indicate that the reset has started, and the keys can now be released.

Note: Some BlackBerry smartphones do not display the Alt, Right Shift, and Backspace/Delete keys in the same manner. However, the location of the keys does not change. Refer to the following graphic for key position:
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