Earlier, Chris wrote about how the Baird Equity Research survey went wrong and now, Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations, Research In Motion has taken to the BlackBerry Developer Blog to address the report as well. In the very direct post from Alec, he states he was shocked to hear the information in the report because they really don't reflect that of reality. As man who is traveling the world, attending as many BlackBerry events as possible, he should know the real perception of developers. As noted within the post:

In the past year our BlackBerry App World ™ vendor base has grown 157 percent. We have developers submitting amazing apps for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ users. In fact, the BlackBerry PlayBook app catalog has grown by more than 15,000 apps since January 1 of this year. We just announced that more than three billion applications have been downloaded from BlackBerry App World since launch.

But much more importantly, the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour we are currently hosting in 23 cities across the globe has seen over capacity registration in almost every city, including New York, Santa Clara, Toronto, Jakarta, Singapore, Delhi, and Montreal. We have already spoken to almost 5,000 developers and the feedback has been phenomenal (don’t take my word for it, search Twitter for the hashtag #bb10jam).

I have been receiving a lot of feedback from developers personally and I can tell you that I am hearing again and again that developers are amazed by how easy it is to work with the BlackBerry 10 tools. They appreciate the open nature of our platform, which allows developers to bring their work and their skills and find a toolset that will work for them. The other thing I hear consistently is that RIM simply treats developers better than anyone else in the mobile industry. That is music to my ears!I want to once again thank our developer community. You see what we are doing to increase our support for you. You see what RIM is building with Blackberry 10 and the amazing opportunity to be part of our new platform and you have shared your enthusiasm and excitement with us.

We all know it's Alec's job to defend the BlackBerry platform and its current efforts but on a personal level, I've heard it time and time again as well. Developers are excited for what BlackBerry 10 will potentially bring to the table. In addition to that, most developers will tell you now that RIM now FINALLY, after all these years, gets what developers want and need from them in order to produce the types of apps every smartphone ecosystem needs.

Sure, there is a lot of developers out there who will speak of past issues with RIM development tools but things have changed and they will continue to change as RIM is dedicated to making progress in this area. If for whatever reason you still think otherwise, attend a BlackBerry Jam, attend one of the many hack-a-thons, reach out to the developers that are actively using the tools and creating apps, read the success stories. You'll find the reports of RIM bleeding developers have been greatly exaggerated.

Source: BlackBerry Dev Blog

Ok, so the folks at Baird Equity Research apparently did a study about developer sentiment on different platforms. AllThingsD has already written up another BlackBerry death certificate as a result of this survey.

Whatever happened to questioning the quality of these surveys?  I'm not going to try to pick apart this particular survey because I have no idea how it was conducted.

But I will say this - just look at the picture.  There's something obviously wrong with it.  The title says, "How do you view the long term outlook for the following platforms".

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We have seen many a shake up in the recent couple of months as RIM implements its restructuring process. The latest change comes in the form of Ray Gillenwater who is was the managing director of RIM Australia.

Gillenwater has left Research in Motion after just three months in the job. RIM have said today that Gillenwater has left to pursue other interests. He will be replaced by Matthew Ball who has been with the company for a year.

In a statement RIM said that Australia and New Zealand were "important markets for RIM and we are pleased to have Matthew Ball and a talented management team in place that remain focused on continuing the growth of BlackBerry in this region".

Clearly Mr. Gillenwater may well have left of his own accord, however with 5000 job cuts being implemented by RIM you can't help but wonder if he was given a helping hand out the door. The word is he was RIM's youngest managing director. We also know just how well Australia's Wake Up campaigns went over (and in the past this regional marketing is something that would come back to the MD). Sad times for all those involved but as we have said many a time; but sometimes change is necessary.

Source: The Australian

Back in May of this year, Nokia filed several patent infringement lawsuits against HTC, ViewSonic, and RIM. The press release from Nokia listed these patents as covering "dual function antennas, power management and multimode radios, as well as [---] software features including application stores, multitasking, navigation, conversational message display, dynamic menus, data encryption and retrieval of email attachments on a mobile device". There were 45 total lawsuits filed against the 3 companies, with the 7 involving RIM filed in three cities in Germany.

Now Nokia is piling on some more to RIM's already full load with 3 additional patent infringement actions, also being filed in Germany. These patents are for "a method and system for storing and transferring multimedia tags, a method and apparatus for updating the software of a mobile terminal using the air interface, and a method for transferring resource information". It looks like RIM could possibly countersue Nokia, though it's not likely that RIM would be the winner in such a case. No word on how long this will all take to get resolved.

Source: Foss Patents

There are quite a few third-party apps that help put a damper on texting while driving by disabling all or parts of your phone and sending messages on your behalf when activated. These seem like a great idea to minimize distractions and keep your focus where it belongs.

It appears that Research In Motion wanted to implement something like this into BlackBerry smartphones, and applied for a patent several years ago that would require users to answer a CAPTCHA before being able to send an outgoing message while the device was moving between 6-10 km/h and 200-240 km/h (approximately 3-6 mph to 124-149 mph). Yes that's right, a CAPTCHA. There were various types of these puzzles included in the patent, including the distorted letter type, math questions, identify the object in the picture, and others. These were designed so that a passenger would be able to solve them easily, but a driver would have more difficulty, and therefore not try to solve which in turn would make everyone safe. Puzzles would be determined by the speed the device is traveling.

While I can see the good intentions behind the patent, I also have to say I'm thankful that it took so long to get approved and that it's not currently implemented in any devices. Hopefully RIM doesn't plan to include this feature in upcoming devices, as it seems (to me at least) that if someone has the intention to send a text or email or other message while they're driving, a CAPTCHA won't stop them and in fact will likely just distract them even further from the road.

Source: USPTO via Engadget

** UPDATE ** When I wrote this story I gave RIM a hard time for cutting off the Q&A session too early. There were a few reports suggesting that many people were still lined up at the microphone when RIM ended the meeting. After speaking to a few more people and reading commentary from people who were in the room, I clearly reported incorrect information. The only people left at the microphone were repeat questioners. And when you read the post, you'll see how little value came from those particular questions. So, to RIM I apologize for an incorrect accusation. *

This morning, in Waterloo, RIM held its AGM.  We did a live podcast (we'll post it up shortly) while piping in the audio feed from the meeting, and in all honesty, it was mostly a non-event.  Not a heck of a lot happened of interest.  Nothing particularly new was brought to the light, and RIM management mostly spent time reiterating information that was already communicated in the past.

Thorsten did a reasonably good job of expanding upon the reasons for the delay in BlackBerry 10.  It boils down to what he considers to be an exceptional job by the software team in coding a large quantity of new capabilities, thereby making the integration of code a much bigger job.  Whether or not this is the entire truth, one thing is for certain:  the entire CrackBerry team agreed that RIM is doing a good job of owning its own delay rather than passing the blame onto a supplier.  Remember the last time that Jim and Mike blamed the delay on chipset availability?  Thorsten doesn't pull that kind of stunt.  

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In what is probably the most uninteresting, yet still important RIM news of the day, Bloomberg has reported that RIM is looking to sell off one of its company jets to help cut costs even further within the organization. The nine-passenger Dassault Aviation SA F50EX is one of two Dassault Aviation aircraft's held by the company currently with the other being a Dassault F900EX that can fit up-to 14 passengers on a midrange flight.

Unnamed sources state RIM has a buyer for the jet with the suggested asking price between $6 million and $7 million, though the buyer has not been named as the sale is not yet complete. Inquiries from Bloomberg to RIM on the matter netted a response from RIM which also reference previous cost saving measures noted by RIM CEO Thorsten Heins:

“We’re looking at options with both our aircraft costs and finding ways to reduce our travel while still making sure we keep in close contact with our partners around the world,” “It’s all part of the effort to find ways to reduce costs and drive efficiencies that Thorsten Heins has talked about.”

With suggested yearly operating costs for the aircraft coming in at $2.2 Million, it makes sense that RIM would be looking to offload some of the assets they currently hold to help achieve their cost saving goal of $1 Billion. Realistically, RIM is also a large property holder as well so it wouldn't be all that surprising to see them looking into business real-estate brokers as well eventually as long as it helps save the company money in the longrun. As sad as it may sound, I'm kind of curious how much they'll actually be saving by selling the jet and then presumably using commercial airlines.

Discuss in the CrackBerry Forums

Source: Bloomberg

*UPDATE* - We reached out to RIM to get clarification on the BlackBerry 10 launching in January comment and here is what we got back - "We obviously want it to launch as soon as possible and that’s the point Thorsten was making, but as we’ve stated before, the goal is Q1 calendar 2013 and that remains our goal. "

This afternoon I had a chance to read through the entire interview that our friend Al Sacco from CIO.com did with RIM CEO Thorsten Heins. It's a great read, and in my opinion it is one of Thorsten's best interviews yet. It's a long interview, but definitely worth your time.

I really wish RIM would have done as good a job communicating on the Q1 conference call so that they wouldn't need to redeem themselves like this now. But it is what it is.

RIM really needs to keep hammering its message home. Because it seems that no matter what they say there is a steady flow of misinformation about the company. Just today, I was watching BNN (Canada's business TV channel) and two guests were discussing RIM. They are both professionals who should be more careful than to spew garbage. Yet one of the guests said RIM is now burning cash. He said it as if it's a fact, which is completely wrong.

So, I went through Al Sacco's interview with Thorsten and here are the bits that I thought were most interesting.

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We're been hearing quite a bit from RIM CEO Thorsten Heins in the last week or so and it's good to see him reaching out to the media and setting some things straight. He's been making the rounds the last few days, all on the heels of the announcement that BlackBerry 10 is delayed and won't launch until early 2013.

Our good friend Al Sacco got a chance to talk one-on-one to the man in charge last week. Al is no slouch when it comes to BlackBerry and he certainly knows the right questions to get the right answers. There is some interesting stuff in the interview -- including the fact that much like many of us, Thorsten also uses a 2nd device to keep up with the competition. He also addresses his editorial in The Globe and Mail as well as what's in store for RIM and the future of BlackBerry.

It's a great read that really gives some awesome insight, so grab a snack, sit back and check out the full interview over at CIO.com 

Continuing their media blitz started earlier this week, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has once again taken to The Globe and Mail to clarify the current situations at Research In Motion. This time was a little different though. Rather than being asked questions from reporters, Thorsten opened himself up to what amounted to be over 200 questions from the public.

In the end, ten questions were chosen by Thorsten and if you've not had a chance to read through them yet, it's certainly something you'll want check out. Not necessarily because of what was said, but because the questions asked mostly come from regular folks. No tech journalists, no tech bloggers. Just people generally concerned about the future of RIM, how they ended up in this position in the first place and finally, what's being done to make it turnaround.

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While we're all busy analyzing and tearing apart financial reports and pulling quotes from media interviews, there are a few people out there having a little bit of fun with RIM's current situation as well, in a good way mind you. As passed along to me by my good friend @firepuncher, an ad appeared in my local classifieds section from a mother who was looking to purchase a new BlackBerry for her daughter. Aside from listing some reasons as to why her 13-yr old daughter would want a BlackBerry, she humorously inserted some words of wisdom and love for RIM.

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According to the Ottawa Citizen, RIM is now cutting down on summer vacations for its Ottawa employees and also bumping up the work week to six days. The increased work hours have been put in place to ramp up efforts to get BlackBerry 10 out the door in what is now Q1 of 2013. The new devices were originally set to launch later this year, but another delay means there are still plenty of things for RIM is looking to done before they can get the devices to the public. Hopefully the extra hours of manpower will be beneficial in the long run. 

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Source: Ottawa Citizen

Following RIM's Q1 2013 earnings call last week, things looked bleak for BlackBerry fans around the world, however, Alec Saunders, VP of Developers Relations for RIM was quick to tell developers "We're Committed" in a blog post. Committed to bringing about the best mobile platform around, with the help of developers, by giving them the all the tools needed to create awesome apps.

In their commitment, it looks like RIM is looking to hire developers around the world to join the Developer Relations team in a variety of posts - Evangelism, Technical Platform Experts, Web Properties development, Marketing and Project Management.

We have just recently seen and heard from a developer who has joined RIM as a BlackBerry Developer Evangelist and if you're thinking about doing so too why not read up on why Luca Filigheddu wanted to join RIM at this time.

For more information and to apply for a job at RIM 

Watching the interview earlier today with Andrew MacLeod, Managing Director for RIM Canada, there was a point at which he said "...the market's very focused on the first products. For us, it's a platform for mobile computing, and that's really the core objective of the company because that's going to define our future." What he's doing here is essentially reminding us that there is a difference between the BlackBerry 10 platform and the BlackBerry 10 product (phones/tablets).

While we all sit patiently and wait for the first BlackBerry 10 phones to come to market, RIM is hard at work perfecting not just their hardware, but also the BlackBerry 10 platform. The line that struck me most was this:

"Certainly it was not an easy decision to hold off on the launch of our new BlackBerry 10 platform, but for us it was critical that we get it right and we build a platform for the next ten years of RIM's growth." 

What this says to me is that RIM is concerned more with the BlackBerry 10 platform as a whole -- wanting and needing it to be perfect out the door when it's launched. The platform itself is where the strong point will be - not in the first run of devices (although the first impression of these devices could make or break things as well). This is why there are unfortunate delays. Sure, we're all waiting on the BlackBerry 10 phones to be available, but RIM is essentially building a "ten year platform" for all of their devices. 

We wouldn't want to see another PlayBook launch where the device was released with sub-par software and only updated months later. We don't want a half-baked OS running on great hardware. Instead, RIM is making absolutely sure that the platform is where it needs to be at launch since that is what will carry RIM from here. 

BlackBerry 10 will ultimately tie into the QNX platform in various areas and be used in not just BlackBerry 10 phones, but also tablets, automotive and OEM products -- a bunch of places QNX is already (or planned to be) in use in the real world. 

"Getting it right is more important than getting it out quickly."

This is really the message RIM is trying to convey through their "media day" today. They are going out to news outlets and letting them know where they are at and what they are ultimately working toward. I know it sucks because as consumers, all we really want are phones, but once the platform is ready we can hope for great things from BlackBerry 10. 

Continuing the media blitz today, Andrew MacLeod, managing director for RIM Canada took to the CBC to answer questions surrounding RIM, their current situation and their future. A lot of what was said was just simply reiterations of what RIM CEO Thorsten Heins had to say previously but there is a few pressing questions in the interview that I'm sure many will find interesting especially, when it comes to how they're addressed. Also, couldn't help but notice how the interviewer sounded as though she had no idea what BlackBerry 10 was as she kept referring to it as "the BlackBerry 10".