The build up to tomorrow’s BlackBerry 10 launch is reaching fever pitch, as Research In Motion announces a whole host of apps to draw corporate users back to the brand.
Research in Motion (now named BlackBerry following the BB10 launch) has obviously be paying attention to its detractors, many of whom doubt whether the new BlackBerry 10 platform will be able to return the former kings of the smartphone world back to the top of the heap – namely it is pursuing app developers aggressively.
It has now announced that apps by Cisco, SAP, Box, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal will all be present at launch, as well as smaller outfits such as Bighand and Truphone.
“The developer community for enterprise and government has been incredible in the support of BlackBerry 10,” said Derek Peper, Vice President of Enterprise Partnerships at RIM.
“The community sees the potential of the BlackBerry 10 platform to help individuals and organizations make the shift from mobile communications to mobile computing, and have stepped forward with powerful, dynamic and user-friendly applications that can empower employees around the globe.”
The smartphone/tablet marketplace remains dominated by Samsung and Apple, which run Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems respectively. RIM is vying to be a third platform to break that duopoly. Rivals such as Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform (which is running on handsets made by Samsung, HTC and Nokia) have struggled to make a decent purchase case, as their App Store’s are still missing many popular apps that have had a long standing presence on Android and Apple devices.
“We are having a very good experience developing enterprise-grade finance apps on the BlackBerry 10 platform using the SAP Mobile Platform. With the SAP Mobile Platform the mobile app development community can build apps that can run on both the new BlackBerry 10 and the existing BlackBerry platforms and devices,” said Pete Graham, Director of Finance Solutions & Mobility at SAP.
SAP is among the world’s largest enterprise software companies, the German company has made its name managing business operations and customer relations – the support of these kinds of companies shows that there is hope for BB10 yet.
Generally considered to be the first modern smartphone, RIM once dominated the industry before the launch of the iPhone in 2007. In just the last year, its share price tumbled by more than 80%, before recovering slightly recently. It is currently listed at $16, down from $148 in 2008. Whether tomorrow’s launch will be enough to rally one of the great comebacks in tech history is still up in the air. While there will be a new handset unveiled tomorrow, details surrounding a new tablet have been unclear. RIM has stated in the past that it intends to run BB10 on its Playbook tablet eventually.
What Mobile will be covering the BlackBerry 10 launch tomorrow, check back here for updates.
