Blackberry 2005 Annual Report Download - page 9

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7
BlackBerry continues to expand and support a wide range of applications beyond email and customers are
embracing BlackBerry as a platform to wirelessly extend their IT systems to mobile employees. The base of
BlackBerry Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) has grown significantly and there are now hundreds of
companies developing applications for use on the BlackBerry platform. Examples of the types of applications
being launched this year include location-enhanced applications that take advantage of the assisted GPS
capability of certain BlackBerry devices and SAP®CRM for BlackBerry to allow real-time access to customer
data. In fiscal 2006, we expect to launch BlackBerry MDS v4.1 which will offer component-based visual design
tools with support for XML Web Services to allow fast simple assembly of applications that are optimized for
wireless. Also in 2006, we expect Enterprise Instant Messaging and real-time collaboration to play a larger role
in BlackBerry deployments through integration efforts with partners and products such as Microsoft®’s Office
Live Communications Server and IBM®’s Lotus®Instant Messaging.
This past year, RIM also re-launched the BlackBerry brand to better represent BlackBerry’s presence
“beyond e-mail”. Through the BlackBerry Mobile Data Service (MDS), more and more companies are using
BlackBerry to access corporate applications data in addition to the existing access to corporate email.
Retail Market
The BlackBerry Internet Service offering, which is targeted at professional consumers (“prosumers”) rather
than enterprises, is continuing to gain traction in the retail market. Customers can now purchase a BlackBerry
device in over 50,000 retail points of presence around the world. Through education and training programs
as well as marketing support programs, RIM and its carrier partners are making BlackBerry available to
a much broader customer base and expanding the addressable market. Product introductions such as the
breakthrough BlackBerry 7100 Series and integration with consumer instant messaging platforms such as
Yahoo!®and AOL®, help ensure that BlackBerry remains at the forefront of this market. We expect the retail
channel to contribute to our growth in the coming year.
BlackBerry Operations
Customers value the reliability of BlackBerry, and we are focused on ensuring the highest level of
performance. This is achieved through continuous improvement in infrastructure software, software
testing, service management, network monitoring tools, capacity management and failover and redundancy
capabilities in the BlackBerry Network Operations Center (NOC). This past year was especially focused on
building sufficient capacity into our systems to accommodate our rapid subscriber growth and on
implementing failover and redundancy capabilities to allow for greater uptime for our customer base.
Customer Care and Technical Support
Delivering exceptional customer care continues to be a focus for RIM. Our state-of-the-art call center
in Waterloo has over 550 employees and operates 24 hours per day, seven days per week. In addition,
RIM’s “TSupport” technical support program has become widely accepted with over 20% of RIM’s
corporate customer base already signing on to the program, including many of our largest customers.
As RIM’s global customer base continues to grow, we plan to expand our customer care capabilities to
incorporate additional geographies and multilingual support.
Licensing Programs
The BlackBerry Connect and BlackBerry Built-In licensing programs have made excellent progress this
past year. A number of BlackBerry-enabled devices have been launched including the Sony Ericsson P910,
the Nokia 6820 and the Windows®Mobile based MDA II and XDA II. In addition, the Siemens SK-65 with
BlackBerry Built-In was brought to market in the past 12 months. We expect to see additional launches of
BlackBerry-enabled devices around the world in the coming year.