Research In Motion (RIM) revealed a few details about the upcoming Blackberry 10 platform at its Jam conference that was held in San Jose. The Blackberry 10 platform has been delayed by a considerable margin so far but now it appears that it is back on track to being rolled out without any further obstacles. The new platform is going to come with a variety of apps from popular social networks and other developers and the Jam conference showcased the working of two popular ones.
The conference was the first showing of the Facebook for Blackberry app and it looks very similar to its iOS version. The shortcuts are listed along the top and there is the navigation bar on the left which slides out when needed. In addition to Facebook, RIM showed off the integration with Foursquare and there is a neat addition to it. Foursquare integrates with BBM as well so users can broadcast their location details from it to BBM as well as other social networks with ease. Other social network applications that will be included with the platform are Twitter and LinkedIn and Gameloft and Halfbrick are going to be the partners for games.
All the news that is coming out of RIM seems to make the company executives happy and the CEO, Thornsten Heins believes that it can get to the number 3 spot easily. He announced to the press at the Jam conference that by betting everything on the Blackberry 10 platform, they are allowing the company to gain lots of traction and grow in the markets that it was once strong in i.e. the Americas. He said that carriers are always looking for more platforms and since Blackberry 10 is unique instead of just another modified version of an OS, carriers will definitely want to get their hands on it.
If Blackberry has to get to the third position, it has to surpass Symbian, which currently holds the place. However, with Symbian phones on the decline, that shouldn’t be too hard but RIM will have to watch out for competition from the Windows Phone devices. Heins was hopeful about the future but refused to give any concrete details about the carriers that they have signed or reasons why Blackberry will be preferred to Android and iOS. Moreover, he repeated that the new devices will be available in the first quarter of 2013.
