On Thursday, BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) announced it would offer several price reductions – as well a major software update – to try to boost the ‘less than impressive’ sales of it’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Not long after the announcement, Rogers employees started receiving emails notifying them that they could purchase a 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook for $249 – touting it as a ‘back to school’ promotion. Rogers employees who purchase a PlayBook before September 22nd, will also receive a $100 Prepaid Mastercard Gift Card, further sweetening the deal.

Reduced public pricing for the BlackBerry PlayBook is $349 for the 16GB model, and $399 for the 32GB flavor. So far there has been no word out of Waterloo if the general public will be offered further price reductions or other incentives to buy the sales-challenged tablet computer.

The new music service, geared towards the social experience, will cost $4.99 per month, and is a unique user experience built from the ground up by Research In Motion, not built upon any existing music platforms.

Here are the key features of BBM Music, as stated in RIM’s press release:

• Build a personal music profile with 50 of your favorite songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month.
• Invite your BBM friends to subscribe to BBM Music and to join your BBM Music Community.
• With each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection since the songs from the profile of each BBM Music friend are available to you at any time.
• Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community shares up to 50 songs from their profile with you.
• Enjoy a truly social community-based music experience – the more friends who join your community, the more songs you can listen to.
• Easily discover music that your BBM Music friends are listening to, and comment on your friends‟ songs and playlists.
• You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends‟ profiles, and with one click you can shuffle the entire collection of music from your BBM Music Community. You can even see which friend contributed each song while it plays.
• Within your BBM Music app, you also see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates of all users within your community. It gives you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends, which songs were added or removed, which playlists were created and what comments were made by your BBM Music friends.
• Listen to Full Tracks – BBM Music subscribers can listen to full tracks from their friends‟ profiles – not just previews.
• Offline Listening – Music can be saved to smartphones for offline listening, allowing users to access songs even when they don‟t have wireless coverage.
• Topping the Charts – Keep track of how many friends are listening to your tracks.

I do have to admit, that I was a little underwhelmed by the PlayBook experience at first, but slowly RIM is building a very slick, solid little ecosystem with it’s pairing of a BlackBerry smartphone with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

I have had a BlackBerry since the days when they were glorified monochromatic displayed pagers capable of “push email” (yes … it was THE buzzword of the time!), and I have continued to support BlackBerry throughout all the uncertainty of late, with a couple less than stellar new phone offerings, and what appeared at first to be a very sexy, yet unimpressive tablet offering, but is slowly beginning to impress me.

I am not so irritated anymore by the pairing of my BlackBerry smartphone to my PlayBook, any more than my leather jacket and my helmet being part of my motorcycle experience.

And yes the sexiness of the Playbook is still a conversation starter whether I am enjoying a beverage at a Montreal patio bar, or checked in at the airport waiting to board a flight … people – (read: hot chicks included) – are still very intrigued to see the PlayBook ‘in action’.

As times goes on, I am more and more convinced that I made the right choice by remaining a BlackBerry loyalist. I am sure we are going to see some amazing things from RIM just over the horizon.

Very cool commercial kickback to the Eighties!

On a side note, Apple has releases the specs of the new upcoming iOS 4.3, and while it does boast a new Nitro javascript engine, it still does not have any flash support. Sorry fanboys – maybe next time around!

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – March 24, 2011) – Developers wanting to bring their new and existing apps to the highly anticipated BlackBerry® PlayBookTM tablet will soon have additional tools and options to enhance and expand their commercial opportunities. Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced plans to greatly expand the application ecosystem for the BlackBerry PlayBook. The BlackBerry PlayBook is scheduled to launch in the U.S. and Canada on April 19.

RIM will launch two optional “app players” that provide an application run-time environment for BlackBerry Java® apps and Android v2.3 apps. These new app players will allow users to download BlackBerry Java apps and Android apps from BlackBerry App World and run them on their BlackBerry PlayBook.

In addition, RIM will shortly release the native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook enabling C/C++ application development on the BlackBerry® Tablet OS. For game-specific developers, RIM is also announcing that it has gained support from two leading game development tooling companies, allowing developers to use the cross-platform game engines from Ideaworks Labs and Unity Technologies to bring their games to the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Support for BlackBerry Java and Android Apps

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is an amazing tablet. The power that we have embedded creates one of the most compelling app experiences available in a mobile computing device today,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The upcoming addition of BlackBerry Java and Android apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform.”

Developers currently building for the BlackBerry or Android platforms will be able to quickly and easily port their apps to run on the BlackBerry Tablet OS thanks to a high degree of API compatibility. The new optional app players will be available for download from BlackBerry App World and will be placed in a secure “sandbox” on the BlackBerry PlayBook where the BlackBerry Java or Android apps can be run.

Developers will simply repackage, code sign and submit their BlackBerry Java and Android apps to BlackBerry App World. Once approved, the apps will be distributed through BlackBerry App World, providing a new opportunity for many developers to reach BlackBerry PlayBook users. Users will be able to download both the app players and the BlackBerry Java and Android apps from BlackBerry App World.

The BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry Tablet OS are built on the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture with a 1GHz dual core processor and a leading OpenGL solution, which allows RIM to make this incredibly broad platform support possible.

BlackBerry PlayBook users and developers who are interested in seeing the new app players for BlackBerry Java and Android apps can see demos at BlackBerry World in Orlando, Florida (May 3 to 5, 2011) (www.blackberryworld.com).

BlackBerry Tablet OS Development Tools

The BlackBerry Tablet OS already supports an incredibly robust platform with support for Web development standard HTML5, through the BlackBerry® WebWorksTM SDK for Tablet OS, and Adobe® AIR®, through the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR. The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built from the ground up to run WebKit and Adobe® Flash® as well, giving developers a fast and true Web experience to leverage.

RIM is also announcing today that the BlackBerry Tablet OS Native Development Kit (NDK), which is currently in limited alpha release, will go into open Beta by this summer and be demonstrated at BlackBerry World. The BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK will allow developers to build high-performance, multi-threaded, native C/C++ applications with industry standard GNU toolchains. Developers can create advanced 2D and 3D applications and special effects by leveraging programmable shaders available in hardware-accelerated OpenGL ES 2.0.

Other features of the BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK will allow developers to:

Take advantage of the QNX POSIX library support and C/C++ compliance for quick and easy application porting and for creating native extensions for both BlackBerry and Android applications
Easily integrate device events like gesture swipes and touch screen inputs
Integrate the BlackBerry Tablet OS environment into existing code management and build systems using industry standard Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools)
Leverage work done in standard C/C++ to make it easier to bring applications to the BlackBerry Tablet OS
Find and fix bugs quickly with provided debug and analysis tools
“The response to the BlackBerry PlayBook from the developer community has been exceptional. Our commitment to supporting HTML5 and Adobe AIR development has resonated and spurred developers to create fun and innovative applications for BlackBerry PlayBook users,” said David Yach, Chief Technology Officer, Software at Research In Motion. “The upcoming BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK beta will add C/C++ tools to our repertoire and gives developers one of the broadest and deepest platforms to develop on.”

Gaming Engines

Building on the power of the BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK, RIM is working with leading gaming and application development technology providers such as Ideaworks Labs and Unity Technologies to implement their native engines and application development platforms. Developers will be able to take advantage of these engines when building games and other applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The Ideaworks Labs Airplay SDK is expected to include support for the BlackBerry Tablet OS soon, making it easy for publishers and developers to use their existing code to bring their games and apps to the BlackBerry PlayBook.

“Supporting a new OS can be a challenge for developers,” says Alex Caccia, President of Ideaworks Labs, “however, integration of the BlackBerry Tablet OS with the Airplay SDK makes this a non-issue. We think this is a far-sighted move by RIM: the BlackBerry PlayBook is a great device for games and applications, and combining this with content distribution via BlackBerry App World brings an exciting new ecosystem for developers.”

RIM has also been working closely with Unity Technologies, providers of the highly popular, multi-platform Unity development platform and Union, the firm’s games distribution service. Through Union, dozens of high-quality Unity-authored games are slated to make their way to BlackBerry App World for the BlackBerry Playbook.

“With a sharp focus on the multimedia experience, very powerful hardware, and fantastic games in the pipeline, the BlackBerry Playbook has all the right ingredients to be a mainstream hit,” said Brett Seyler, GM of Union at Unity Technologies. “Through Union, Unity developers have an opportunity to reach a new audience and grow with another great new platform.”

Availability

The new app players for the BlackBerry PlayBook are expected to be available from BlackBerry App World this summer. More information and demonstrations of the new app players will be shared at BlackBerry World. The BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK will be available in beta later this year and will also be showcased at BlackBerry World.

While this all but eliminates the fears of some analysts that PlayBook’s new QNX operating system would suffer from a lack of available apps, Android apps will not play natively on the Playbook, but rather developers would have to repackage, re-sign, and submit their apps to the BlackBerry App World.

I can barely contain the excitement — April 19th is so close, yet still so far away!

The video is not a RIM commercial for the soon to be released tablet that market analysts have predicted will set the bar for tablet computing if RIM is able to deliver everything they have said this tablet will be. No, this is a very honest hands on, with James telling us what he likes and what he doesn’t about the layout, the user interface, and the total Playbook experience.

It should be noted, that the ROM on this device is not the final version, and we will probably see some minor tweaks still, before the Playbook is released in the US on April 19th.

Research In Motion (RIM) and Microsoft announced a partnership to integrate Microsoft’s cloud-based applications into BlackBerry smartphones and the upcoming PlayBook tablet PC.

This is very welcome news to many Blackberry business users, who will be able to have truly seemless, secure integration between their desktop or office PCs, and their handheld or tablet – an experience that so far most smart phone manufacturers have not been able to provide.

The strategic move comes just as RIM is about to launch the BlackBerry Playbook Tablet PC – a device that many market analysts are saying could raise the bar for tablet PCs. RIM is hoping that this alliance will push BlackBerry back into the forefront of the smartphone market – a position that they have been struggling to keep, since recent improvements to Android and iPhone smart phones have thrust them into the enterprise market.

“The cloud has always been core to our business,” Alec Taylor, vice president of Software, Services and Enterprise Marketing for RIM, told analysts during a March 17 presentation. “It’s how we do real-time push… it’s how we developed our world-class security, our back-end integration with carrier systems…as we move forward, we want to be able to integrate and support the multiple organizations and firms that are leading parts of the cloud revolution.”

This alliance will benefit both tech powerhouses. Microsoft has seen some of its enterprise app market share erode with the advent of Google’s suite of free, web-based productivity software, Google Apps. Google’s apps compete with Mircosoft’s Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) — to be the foundation of Office 365. So, the joint-venture helps strengthen Microsoft’s enterprise cloud offerings as it defends against Google.

RIM plans to further expand their cloud-based services later in 2011, and will roll out BlackBerry Protect, a cloud-based solution to secure and protect BlackBerry devices and their content, BlackBerry Management Center, a cloud-based management system aimed at small businesses, and Blackberry Enterprise Service for larger companies looking to move into the cloud.

With numerous Android tablets due to soon hit the market, it appears that Research In Motion wants to position the BlackBerry PlayBook as a very worthy competitor.

Research In Motion (RIM) has begun production of the highly-anticipated Blackberry Playbook Tablet PC.

According to Digitimes, 150,000 to 200,000 units are being produced per month, with the first shipments being ready to send out as early as February.

The Blackberry Playbook is being manufactured by Quanta Computer Inc. in Taiwan, a strategic move by RIM, to prevent white box manufacturers in mainland China from creating knock-offs of the tablet computer, and to protect it’s security features.

Until now, the production progress of the Blackberry Playbook has been kept in a shroud of secrecy. RIM has not yet set a launch date, but market analysts have indicated that a March Playbook launch seems to be expected. RIM expects to ship 1 million Playbook tablets in Q1 of 2011.

Starbucks has taken the customer experience to yet a new level, with the introduction of its Starbucks Card Mobile App available for both Blackberry and iPhone smartphones.

The Starbucks Card Mobile App allows Blackberry users to instantly pay for their Starbucks purchases by tapping their phone on a countertop scanner while displaying the Starbucks Card bar code on their phone. The app also lets users locate Starbucks locations nationwide, as well as locally, top up their Starbucks card, and get their current balance.

To download the Starbucks Card Mobile App and check out mobile payment, BlackBerry smartphone users can text the word “GO” to 70845 or visit http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps/starbucks-card-mobile-bb from their device (Standard message and data rates apply.). It’s available for a variety of BlackBerry smartphones including BlackBerry 8800 series; BlackBerry Bold series; BlackBerry Curve series; BlackBerry Storm; BlackBerry Storm2 and BlackBerry Tour.

Seeing the Playbook ‘in action’, it becomes very apparent to me, that the Playbook – with it’s 7 inch 1080p HD screen, is going to be a much more “portable” computing device than it’s iPad nemesis.

While the 10.1 inch screen found on the iPad may be better suited for classroom use, or use as a wall-mounted TV for a kitchen, I am predicting Blackberry’s tablet is going to run away with the prize for portability, and become very popular with people on-the-go. Apple already proved to us with the third generation iPod Nano, that a smaller screen is not necessarily a deal breaker – if impressive resolution, response, and contrast are all present.

Add support for Adobe Flash, Adobe Air, and HTML5 rich media, to a 7 inch full 1080p display, and I think we are going to see a device that addresses everything people complained about in the first generation iPad. I will but my money where my mouth is, that Research In Motion is going to raise the bar on tablet computing.

With the phrase “tablet computer” becoming all the hype these days in the wonderful world of consumer electronics gadgetry, the Apple vs. Blackberry rivalry is heating up to become as important to pop culture as Coke vs. Pepsi, Vampires vs. Werewolves, or even Wile E. Coyote vs. the Roadrunner.

With both camps bringing already fanatically loyal fan bases to the table, what is going to be interesting is, seeing if the Playbook will have what it takes to make the Apple fanboys take notice and say “Hey! Now that’s fucking cool – I want one!”