HELLO WATERLOO!!!
 

And I am BACK. Big thanks to Bla1ze who tackled my From the Editor's Desk post last week. He did a great job on it. He was on time too. This column is scheduled to be posted on Sunday, and here I am on a Tuesday late evening finally getting a little something up. But I do have some good excuses for being busy... including a short-notice trip last week to WATERLOO, Ontario, the birthplace and hometown of BlackBerry!!

That's right, I flew down to Toronto a week ago and drove into Waterloo for Wednesday. It was a busy day, which included dropping by to take in the We Day festivities again this year. BlackBerry is a big believer in We Day and sponsors the event, and RIM's CEO Thorsten Heins did a great job taking to the stage to speak to the thousands of passionate and energized youth in attendance (video to come).

From there I was able to meet and sit down with BlackBerry's new Chief Operating Officer, Kristian Tear and talk at length. We've already met with BlackBerry's CEO and CMO on multiple occassions, so it was great to catch up with Kristian and talk about his time at the company so far as things ramp to the launch of BlackBerry 10. We'll bringing you our full interview Q&A with Kristian shortly, so stay tuned for that. 

I wasn't in Waterloo for very long, but while there did have a chance to connect with a lot of BlackBerry folks, and it was clear to me that the excitement is building for BlackBerry 10. My last trip to Waterloo was in July for the company's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, and at that point the launch of BB10 was still far off into the future. When I came home from that trip my faith was restored, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

Now, the new beginning for RIM is really and truly in sight. WE HAVE A DATE. Walking in and out of RIM buildings, things were BUSTLING. People were coming and going in every direction. This is a company getting ready to launch something that's going to be BIG. I can't wait. Only 70 more sleeps.

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