With all the doom and gloom press that BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has been receiving, it’s often hard to see through the negativity and get to the core of what is happening at RIM. While I was out in Waterloo, Ontario -- the home city of RIM -- I had the chance to make my rounds and discuss BlackBerry and the future of BlackBerry 10. Not only did I learn that RIM is committed to the developer community, I also heard from a few developers that the development community is committed to RIM.
One of the key take aways from a few of the developers I met with was that RIM’s dev support team is by far the best in the mobile space. One devloper said “I can call or email anyone of the dev support team and I get a response, try that with the other guys, and it isn’t as easy”.
One other thing that I noticed, and I'll say that this isn’t my first visit to RIM, is that this time around the employees seemed to be ecstatic about BlackBerry 10 and the future of RIM. Now, I’m not saying that on my last visit everyone at RIM was worried or concerned, what I’m saying is that there’s a noticeable excitement in the air - and that’s a good thing.
Over the next week or so I will be posting a mini series of my tip to Waterloo, and to RIM. The mini series will contain posts about what developers are seeing from RIM, and what their take on BlackBerry 10 is. The series will also touch on RIM’s stance on Near Field Communications, and how they are helping developers create the best apps for the BlackBerry platform. Don’t worry, I asked about the Netflix and Skype apps for BlackBerry 10, but you’ll have to wait for that post to hear about them :-).
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