Blackberry 2012 Annual Report Download - page 20

The Company is continuing to grow and support its developer community through its annual developer conferences hosted in
North America, EMEA, and APAC. These conferences are held by RIM to bring developers together for a series of keynotes,
lectures and workshops.
The QNX operating system will become the basis for BlackBerry 10 smartphones currently expected to launch in the latter part
of calendar 2012. RIM believes the BlackBerry 10 platform will combine the best aspects of the QNX and BlackBerry
platforms, along with those from RIM acquisitions such as, The Astonishing Tribe, New Bay, Torch Mobile, Gist and Tungle.
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• Support for Multiple Carriers, Geographies and Network Protocols. The BlackBerry solution offers choice and manageability
for global customers. Through relationships with 650 wireless carriers and distribution partners in over 175 countries around the
world, RIM is able to offer customers their choice of carrier depending on their needs in a particular geography. In addition,
BlackBerry smartphones support many network protocols, including GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA, HSPA+,
CDMA/1xRTT/Ev-DO and iDEN, offering customers the best choice of carriers and network technologies for their particular
region without changing the underlying BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM will continue to launch new products for next generation
networks, such as 4G and LTE, as the de
p
lo
y
ment scale and the economies around these networks are established.
• Growth of the BlackBerry App Ecosystem and Developer Community. An application-rich ecosystem is critical to succeeding
in the mobile smartphone and tablet marketplace, and RIM continues to build a large network of thousands of commercial,
independent and corporate software developers focused on developing consumer and enterprise level applications for
BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. The Company also expanded its developer base and application
catalogue through the development of BlackBerry tools for Android Apps. Through the Company’s Android Player, Android
developers can easily port Android applications to BlackBerry App World. BlackBerry App World provides BlackBerry
smartphone users with a comprehensive electronic catalogue that aids in the discovery and download/purchase of
applications directly from their BlackBerry smartphone. Users can purchase applications using their personal PayPal account,
credit card and through carrier billing. With 40 carriers around the world, users are able to purchase applications and have the
charge applied directly to their wireless carrier bill. RIM is continuing to expand the reach and availability of its carrier billing
service to more carriers and customers around the world.
• The BlackBerry Tablet OS, BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet, and QNX-
b
ased OS.RIM launched the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
based on the BlackBerry Tablet OS in April 2011, which supports symmetric multiprocessing and is built upon the QNX
Neutrino microkernel architecture. In February 2012, RIM launched BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, a free software upgrade for
BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users. Together, the abundant processing power and highly sophisticated operating system enables
the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to provide users with true multitasking and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen
ex
p
erience for a
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lications and content services.
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