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7
Annual Report 2006
Retail
With the number of BlackBerry prosumer
subscribers in the seven digits, RIM is the leading
wireless data platform in the retail segment today.
Customers are selecting BlackBerry for its ease of
use, reliability and great user experience. This year
the retail team also launched a new version of
BlackBerry Internet Service which facilitates in
store provisioning and provides support for
integrated email and Instant Messaging (IM). RIM
is also focused on expanding the availability of
the BlackBerry solution in the prosumer segment
through expanding relationships with indirect
resellers in both North America and beyond and
through strategic relationships with leading Internet
Service Provider (ISP) portal and internet
applications companies such as Yahoo! and Google.
R&D and Manufacturing
RIM’s expertise in research and development
continued to be apparent in scal 2006. The R&D
and manufacturing teams were extremely busy
during the year with a number of new products
under development as well as the launch of the
BlackBerry 8700 Series platform. The launch of
the BlackBerry 8700 Series platform was the
culmination of a number of years of hard work as it
required the integration of the new Intel chipset,
the development and implementation of RIM’s own
radio code stack, the integration of new display
technology, and a number of new software
enhancements. In addition, the teams developed
and brought to market new BlackBerry 7100
style devices for Ev-DO and iDEN® networks, the
BlackBerry SmartCard Reader, BlackBerry
Enterprise Server v4.1 and BlackBerry MDS v4.1,
and a new version of BlackBerry Internet Service.
In the coming year, the R&D team will be working on
the continued evolution of the BlackBerry hardware
and smartphone platform, further enhancements
to BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry
Internet Solution, and continued efforts to reduce
costs through design and engineering innovation.
Manufacturing continued to scale its capabilities
and capacity through investment at the RIM
Waterloo facility and extension of the outsourcing
partnerships established last year with leading
global contract electronic manufacturers. Total
devices shipped in scal 2006 were approximately
4 million, up from approximately 2.5 million devices
in scal 2005. RIM’s manufacturing facility is
currently in the process of expanding which will
double its present size. The expanded facility will be
used for incremental production, material storage
requirements and co-location of some dispersed
manufacturing operations functions.
BlackBerry Operations
RIM continued to extend the capabilities of the
BlackBerry architecture to enhance the reliability
of the BlackBerry service. To support the near
doubling of our subscriber base in scal 2006 and
to prepare for continued growth, our infrastructure
and service management teams grew by 70%. This
expansion has enabled a substantial reduction in
our “time to launch” schedule for new carriers,
even though there has been a signicant increase
in carrier demand over the past year. Continuity
of Operations Planning continues to be a priority
and additional internal redundancy was also added
to lay the foundation for higher availability and
reliability to our customers. In addition, this past
year, the BlackBerry operations team implemented
a software upgrade to the infrastructure which
dynamically optimizes throughput for the newer
high speed data networks. This results in an
enhanced customer experience through noticeably
faster web browsing and access to application data.
ISV Partnerships
RIM’s Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners
play a very important role in the BlackBerry
ecosystem. The over 500 members of RIM’s ISV
program provide an extensive range of both
horizontal and vertical enterprise applications
to enable customers to derive even greater value
from their BlackBerry investment. These partners
are extremely important in terms of driving
deeper penetration of the BlackBerry solution into
enterprise customer accounts as well as in delivering
compelling applications for the personal use of
BlackBerry customers.
7

Over 4 million
devices were
shipped by RIM
during the year