RIM working on iPhone rival
RIM, once the maker of the most corporate-looking handhelds, is rumored to be working on a touch-screen phone that will compete with the iPhone and - for the first time on a BlackBerry - have no hard keyboard.
The BlackBerry 9000 series will be aimed at the consumer market, where the condensed BlackBerry Pearl has had a lot of success since its launch last year marked a change of direction for RIM.
"The 9000 is supposed to be a touchscreen device, very similar in form factor to the iPhone," says analyst Carmi Levy of ARCommunications, in an article for Unstrung. He expects them to appear in the first quarter of 2008, to be aimed squarely at consumers, not suits, and to have 3G as well as updated multimedia abilities.
RIM isn't discussing this in public, but the rumours on several sites are getting confident that the 9000 will extend the company's Pearl consumer range a bit further to capitalize on the demand created by the iPhone.
While Levy is quoted saying this is "the future of the BlackBerry franchise," no one expects the new product - if any - to dislodge the company's mainstay, the traditional BlackBerry QWERTY e-mail phones beloved by executives.
RIM hasn't responded to this burst of rumors but Levy believes the 9000 Series will appear in the first quarter of 2008, apparently after missing an original target of the second half of this year.
- +
Life on the EEEdge: Daily life with Asus' tiny laptop 04 January, 2008 07:15:21
6 annoying things (and 3 great ones) about Asus' ultraportableLike many gearheads, I've owned a lot of portable computers over the years -- and I've wanted to replace every last one with a smaller, sleeker upgrade, from the "luggable" Apple IIc onward. But most of those upgrades have left me disappointed: with the lack of software; with cheap, hard-to-use interfaces; and with "optional" add-ons that were in fact very much necessary to make the machine useful. - +
ARN's A-Z guide to networking 19 December, 2007 14:50:54
As business needs change, so do the requirements for the business backbone. ARN looks at networking trends and technologies and reports on predictions for 2008 and beyond.
Click here for case studies, whitepapers and other useful vendor content 
ARN Panel Sessions: Day 3The last of our panel sessions recorded live at CeBIT 2008. Today, the topic is storage. Data is growing at an enormous rate, so what does the future hold?
Weekly Tech News Update: 21st November 2008Yahoo's CEO says goodbye, Intel introduces a new processor, and robots run wild. All that news and more on this week's World Tech Update
Electronic voting in U.S. electionDoubts about voting machines are lingering in the minds of many Americans as they head to the polls.
When an IT disaster occurs, how handy it would be to push a button and start again as if nothing had happened.
Discover and learn more about CA XOSoft today.
PGP and Ponemon Institute Unveil Inaugural Australian Data Breach Study 2008 20 November, 2008 17:34:00
Symantec Cloud Services Transform Data Centre Operations Through Proactive Management 20 November, 2008 12:06:00
Verizon Business Offers Tips to Building a Successful Unified Communications and Collaboration Plan 20 November, 2008 12:04:00
NetApp Named 2008 Citrix Ready Solution of the Year by Citrix Systems 20 November, 2008 11:33:00
Extreme Networks Ethernet Transport lowers total cost of ownership for carrier metro networks 20 November, 2008 10:21:00
Dataract increases e5 Workflow performance with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008
Since upgrading to Windows Server 2008 from Windows Server 2003, Dataract have made visible improvements in their workflow calculations and image presentation performance.
Buying Guides
Latest Products
