Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), will take the stage next Wednesday as a Day One keynote speaker at the CTIA Wireless 2009 convention in Las Vegas. Wireless Week Associate Editor Andrew Berg recently caught up with Lazaridis, who shared his take on the omnipresent competition, changes since the first BlackBerry was introduced in 1999 and what’s in store for the next 10 years.

Wireless Week: What’s top of your mind as you prepare to address the industry at CTIA?

Lazaridis

Mike Lazaridis: RIM has studied and invested in this industry for over 20 years and we have spent the last 10 years intensely focused on evolving the BlackBerry platform, so I am particularly enthused this year with the positive momentum occurring in the smartphone sector and the opportunities I see for RIM and its partners to leverage our strong technological and business foundations.

We recently shipped our 50 millionth BlackBerry and what strikes me most, as we prepare for this year’s CTIA, is the fact that we have now established a platform with broad enough market appeal and a big enough customer base to support a much larger ecosystem of developers and other industry partners. When I think of the array of opportunities for our partners to build on the BlackBerry platform and to add value in both the enterprise and consumer sectors, I realize that the next 10 years will be even more exciting and rewarding. Notwithstanding the current macroeconomic challenges, I think our industry is brimming with opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurship and we’re only just seeing the beginning.

WW: What impact has the economy had on your business or the way you do business?

Lazaridis: We are fortunate to have established a leadership position within a market segment that has positive momentum and lots of room to grow. No business is immune from macroeconomic factors, but we have been able to push through the headwinds and grow our business with products and services that appeal to both professionals and consumers and that offer businesses a truly compelling and proven return on investment. Read the rest of this entry »

Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc, is planning to launch its service for iPhone users on Tuesday and for BlackBerry in May as part of its effort to expand beyond desktop computers.

Skype has been pushing to make its service work on the most popular advanced phones with an aim to expending its more than 400 million users who were mostly lured by the promise of cheap and sometimes free calls made using its computer application.

Skype Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag said he has high hopes for the application’s success on Apple Inc’s popular iPhone as he expects Skype’s most feature-rich mobile offering to appeal to new and existing customers.

“The No. 1 request we get from customers is to make Skype available on iPhone. There’s a pent-up demand,” Durchslag said in an interview before the CTIA annual mobile showcase in Las Vegas, where Skype plans to launch the service on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a great application from the folks at Toysoft that caught my eye the other day mainly because of the fact it allows you to set different ringtones for specific times of the day. So say for example you are at work and you want to just have some nice basic ringtones for the possible business atmosphere you may be in, you can set it so that it will only play those tones. Then let’s say you get off of work and you wanna kick some Flo Rida or maybe you’d like to hear some Steve Miller Band while you’re away from the office, you can do that too. Read the rest of this entry »

Been holding out on the purchase of a new BlackBerry? Don’t mind buying a refurbished device? Well, AT&T has a one day only deal for new customers that don’t mind signing a 2 year contract to get a sweet deal on a sexy new BlackBerry Bold. Seemingly for today only you can grab a refurbished Bold for nada, zip, zilch, zero that’s a price no one can refuse. Read the rest of this entry »

Sling Player for BlackBerry was one of those long awaited applications that seemingly took forever to go live on BlackBerry devices and finally the announcement came that it had been released way back in December. Fast forward to now and Sling Player for BlackBerry has grown up ever so slightly and is no longer considered a beta application with having reached the milestone of 1.0 status. Although to look at the update and the previous version seemingly not much has changed from what I can tell, but I’m sure there’s maybe something different (or at least they’re satisfied enough now with stability and usage to drop the beta label). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really starting to think that RIM testers and employees might be spending too much time utilizing the RIM built IM clients rather then actually working on more important issues like say, a better web browser or even ohh I dunno… a new OS for the BlackBerry Storm lol.

I do have good reasoning for this thought of course, it being the fact that RIM has updated all their IM clients again only after having just done so back in beginning of March. The current version available on http://www.blackberry.com/istantmessaging is now 2.1.44 for devices other then the BlackBerry Storm, which is at 2.2.31 as the Storm has its own variation of the applications. In typical RIM fashion no change log was provided so no one but RIM knows why the upgrades were even made available (though maybe a knowledge base article will pop up??). Read the rest of this entry »

An article posted by Business Week is stating that on April 1st, co-CEO of RIM, Mike Lazaridis will be taking stage in Las Vegas at CTIA to officially announce the availability of the BlackBerry App World to the public. We know that RIM has been putting the word out to all developers and have been reaching out to consumers non-stop, and anyone signed up for updates from RIM has probably recieved at a minimum 5 emails regarding BlackBerry App World and its soon to be available status. Read the rest of this entry »

Wowza. How’s this for a BlackBerry rumor not starting in the typical realm of BlackBerry blogs??

NewTeeVee.com claims to have heard from several sources that RIM will soon be unveiling a full-episode television service for BlackBerry, potentially as early as next week at CTIA. Rumored details thus far for the BlackBerry TV service suggest: Read the rest of this entry »

Society’s bad eggs are increasingly turning to the use of BlackBerry devices to skirt detection from law enforcement. Authorities report they have trouble intercepting illicit emails and conversations because of the relatively secure BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Developed by Research in Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry Enterprise Server works on a secure network that encrypts data. It was designed with the intention of keeping the security legitimate business communications intact. Faced against such a highly secure means of transmitting of information, however, it’s near impossible for law enforcement to listen in on and nab suspected criminals. The Read the rest of this entry »