Lately RIM has been trying to drive home the message that BlackBerry developers are extremely important to them, and they have shown this in many ways. While many may wonder if the Hackathons that they have been having are worthwhile on their end, the simple answer is yes. Each time that RIM is able to entice another developer to make use of their tools, and develop for their platform, it is yet another potential app for the BlackBerry users.

Until recently many people have viewed BlackBerry as a platform to stay away from when it comes to development, saying it was hard and not worth while, but luckily we have seen new developers stepping up to the plate still. Last year at a Boston Hackathon Jad Meouchy of Jadware Inc began his BlackBerry development career. It was this event, learning about the social SDK of BBM, and the inner workings of WebWorks development. Could what started out as a two day development session begin a career in BlackBerry development, and show developers the potential of the platform? Let's hit the break and check out an interview with Jad Meouchy.

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To say BBM Hackathon was an eye opening experience would be an understatement, seeing all these developers in such a small area, willing to share secrets, and help eachother out was a great thing. I was able to pull Jerome Carty from Kisai Labs away from his computer for a second time to ask him some questions around BlackBerry development, get a little more from his point of view, and see what he had to say. Let's hit the break and take a look at some of Jerome's favorite applications, his thoughts on the development community, and what he has in the works for us currently.

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While Ewan was busy checking out the new BlackBerry 7 devices today in the UK, he took some time out to sit down with RIM's Managing Director for the UK & Ireland, Stephen Bates. Mr. Bates talked on the new devices, the BlackBerry 7 OS, Liquid Graphics and the international reach of the BlackBerry platform. He goes on to say that this is the biggest global launch for RIM to date and more devices are certainly on the way. Sit back, relax and check out the full interview above (make sure you stick it out til the end!) then read more on the upcoming BlackBerry smartphones.

Over the weekend we posted some of the video from our CrackBerry App Awards party in San Francisco and today we have the rest of them for your viewing pleasure. Included here are some interviews with sponsors Xobni and the BlackBerry Partners Fund as well as CrackBerry Idol winner Dave Peckens. As I watch these I get super excited to think about next years awards party (planning is already in the works for an even bigger and awesomer event). Stay tuned for that!

Keep reading to check out all the videos. HUGE thanks again goes out to our co-sponsors Xobni and the BlackBerry Partners Fund. Thanks too for everyone that came out to support us!

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The CrackBerry App Awards party went down as a huge success this week. With over 200 people packed into Xobni's awesome headquarters, it was a perfect venue and atmosphere to hand out the 2010 Crackies. Big thanks also go to the BlackBerry Partners Fund for sponsoring the event and make it all possible. I have a feelng we'll be doing it up again in 2011 even bigger and better.

Following up the CrackBerry App Awards Winners' Announcement, we finally pulled the video from the event off the CrackBerry camera and got it up onto youtube for your viewing pleasure. Above you can watch the party walkabout, hosted by Adam, and below you can find interviews with some of our winners in attendance, recorded after winning their award. Enjoy the show!

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Back at WES 2010 we had a fun time interviewing bloggers to get their reactions on BlackBerry 6 and the announcement of the Bold 9650 and Pearl 3G. While a ton of news got announced at BlackBerry DevCon 2010, it's the BlackBerry PlayBook with the BlackBerry Tablet OS that's dominating the headlines.

So following up the announcement of the PlayBook, we once again tracked down the bloggers in attendance to get their thoughts and feedback on RIM's first tablet and what it means for the future of BlackBerry. Check out the video above to see your favorite bloggers in real live action!

HUGE THANKS go to all the bloggers who let us put them on camera once again!

A few days ago, a few of the folks heading up this year BlackBerry Developers Conference got to sit down and discuss some of the events happening at DevCon this year. Those individuals, Chris Smith, Tyler Lessard, Tim Neil and Mike Kirkup  all appear in the above video and give us all some great insight regarding what to expect. A lot of questions were asked and a lot of good answers were relayed throughout the video. Of course, no striking details were revealed as we all know we'll have to wait for DevCon for more information. But, the excitement around DevCon is building and you better believe we'll be there to cover it. Stay tuned for more DevCon coverage! For more info on the event and to register, click here.

Question of the Day for Developers: If you've decided you're not attending DevCon or are still on the fence, what would make you decide to go?? Drop your DevCon wishes in the comments!

Source: BB Dev Blog

At WES 2010 in Orlando last week I had the opportunity to sit down with the CrackBerry.tv camera rolling and talk shop with Alan Brenner, who is the Senior Vice President of the BlackBerry Platform for Research in Motion. As you can imagine with a title like that, a LOT of stuff in the BlackBerry-realm falls under Alan's management, from RIM's core of "delivering the mail" (BES/BIS) to things like BlackBerry MVS, App World and even RIM-built apps like the new Twitter for BlackBerry.

I tossed a lot of questions at Alan during our time together that were things I figured the CrackBerry community would want to hear. We cover topics like App World and BlackBerry app development, gaming on BlackBerry (I was curious to know how high of a priority games on BlackBerry is for RIM - aka how soon we'll see OpenGL on GSM BBs) and touch on the growing need for increased memory on BlackBerry. HUGE thanks to Alan for taking the time to speak to CrackBerry. Enjoy the show!

We met Cortado at WES this year and they offer BlackBerry users the ability to print to WiFi or Bluetooth printers.  For enterprise customers a Cortado server is installed behind the corporate firewall offering secure remote printing to any company printer from anywhere in the world.

Another great feature is allowing you to access files stored on network drives at the office.  I was very impressed with the product and found it really cool and could be very useful in an orgainization that can afford and justify the cost of the server and license.

What blew me away was when they announcedat WES a personal version which offers free printing to any WiFi or Bluetooth printers.  Additionally they give each user 1GB of web based storage for files.  This now gives you the ability to print from files stored in the cloud or on your BlackBerry handheld.

• The Cortado application is available at no charge in the BlackBerry AppWorld >>

One of the big highlights at WES 2010 for me personally was the sit-down time I had with senior level management at RIM. Everybody we had the opportunity to speak to had a passion for BlackBerry and knew their areas of expertise inside and out. For a couple of these interviews we were even able to fire up the CrackBerry.tv camera so we could bring you back the highlights in video!

The name BlackBerry is synonymous with security, so it was awesome to sit down with Scott Totzke, VP of the Global Security Group for RIM, and learn more about RIM's holistic approach to security. Scott also took the opportunity in speaking to CrackBerry readers to throw out some security tips that all BlackBerry owners should pay attention to (set a device password!!!!). Apologies in advance for the little bit of radio interference static that shows up towards the end of the interview... as you can imagine, it's hard to avoid that at an event like WES with BlackBerrys everywhere. We hope you enjoy the piece. HUGE thanks go to RIM and Scott for taking the time to talk to CrackBerry.

Following up Part I of our BlackBerry Solution Showcase Spotlight at WES 2010, in Part II we visit several more of the companies that were on hand in Orlando. 

This time around we have Gwava, NeverFail, iSec7, TouMetis, Wireless Watchdogs and Grabba. You can watch the video above to learn more about what each of these companies offers in the BlackBerry space and click the links to jump over to their websites for more information.

Despite the screenshots that leaked the week prior, I honestly wasn't sure that RIM would even give us a sneak peek of OS 6.0 at WES. Suffice to say, even though it was a video preview vs. a live demo I was pretty darn excited and happy to see BlackBerry 6 get shown off (and I really like that RIM is going to brand it BlackBerry 6). As I said previously here on the blogs, based on the preview video BB6 looks pretty compelling. It keeps the best of BlackBerry and modernizes it with some of the features we have been seeing in other mobile operating systems and adds some new ones of its own. If RIM can execute and deliver an enjoyable and fast user experience, it's going to go a long way in keeping RIM fighting in the smartphone game.

But this is CrackBerry, and you know I LOVE BlackBerry, so we decided to have some CrackBerry.tv fun and see what other mobile bloggers attending WES thought about BlackBerry 6 and another big announcement at WES, the introduction of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G. Be sure to check out the video above... we've got lots of tech personalities chiming in here: Chris Ziegler from Engadget, Eric Zeman from Phone Scoop, Al Sacco of CIO, Andrew Munchbach of BGR and many, many more! Enjoy the show!!

Following the WES 2010 Keynote (and just before we did our WES 2010 Solution Showcase Speed Tour) we put RIM's Mike Kirkup behind the big CrackBerry.tv camera to hear his quick reactions on the BlackBerry announcements of the show. In his role of Director of Developer Relations, it's easy to see that Mike is clearly excited for what's coming in BlackBerry 6, both for the consumer and what it will mean for developers. Check out the video above for Mike's remarks on BlackBerry 6 as well as BlackBerry MVS, the Pearl 3G and more!

Stay tuned for more... our next CrackBerry.tv video to air is an awesome compilation of Bloggers' reactions to WES 2010. 

When I ran into Rob Kao of SmrtGuard yesterday at Mobile World Congress I convinced him to go on camera for a couple minutes and give us an update on where things are at. SmrtGuard recently released a free version of their premium mobile security application, and with pre-MWC rumors talking about RIM releasing their own "BlackBerry shield" service, some of our comment posters made reference to the timing of these events maybe being a little too coincidental. Check out the video above to see what Rob had to say.

• Learn More about SmrtGuard-Free for BlackBerry Smartphones >>
• Learn More/Purchase SmrtGuard-Pro for BlackBerry Smartphones (currently 50% off) >>

November 30th, 2006: Hi Morgan, thanks for agreeing to talk with us today. Let’s start with a little background information. How long have you been interested in mobile software?

Morgan: Absolutely, my pleasure. I’ve been a mobile applications enthusiast since I bought my first Palm Pilot in 1997. I became interested in the business side of mobile software when I joined Palm, Inc. at the beginning of 2000. One of my first projects was to take a look at the Palm applications market and figure out how we could make it bigger.

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