In case you missed last week's inaugural From the Editor's Desk, I'll reiterate the premise behind this new series of editorial one more time. Think of it this way... if CrackBerry were a weekly magazine, this would be the Letter from the Editor at the start of each issue. It's a dialog between me and you, sounding off on the week that was and looking ahead to the future. More or less I'll get it posted every Sunday. We'll talk BlackBerry, CrackBerry, mobile and more. Let's get to it!
MOM is for Mom of course... Happy Mother's Day!
Before we get to the week of tech news, I want to take a moment to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Seriously, I think Mother's Day should be more like Mother's Month - you all deserve wayyy more than a day of recognition. I hope you had a great one and your kids and hubbies treated you well!
And since my mom reads CrackBerry every day (for real, no joking), I have to give her a special shout out for being the awesomest and most supportive mom ever. No, that's not her in the photo, but I *have* been hooking her up with tech gifts instead of flowers for many years now. I think she prefers it!
Research In Motion Has a New CMO and COO
left: Frank Boulben, Chief Marketing Officer; right: Kristian Tear, Chief Operating Officer
The wait is over! Research In Motion has a new Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer. BlackBerry has been without a CMO since Keith Pardy left the company a little over a year ago, and the need for a new COO emerged after Thorsten Heins moved up to the CEO position in January of this year and Jim Rowan, RIM's other COO, left the company in March.
With this week's appointments of Frank Boulben and Kristian Tear to the CMO and COO rolls, there will be no empty seats around the boardroom table for RIM's C-level meetings. Following up the news, Chris Umi wrote a solid post examining the backgrounds of both Frank and Kristian. Both guys have a lot of experience in mobile with long resumes to match, but the bottomline is that it's going to be their actions going forward, not their past performance, that these two will be judged on.
We welcome both to #TEAMBLACKBERRY, and wish them the best!
CTIA = ZZzz
CTIA Wireless is an annual wireless show, and this past week it was held in New Orleans. From the Mobile Nations team we had Phil, Jared and Andrew on hand to cover the news. With BlackBerry World held the week before we weren't expecting to hear anything from RIM but it was surprising to see just how quiet the show was overall for compelling announcements from anybody.
The last couple of years CTIA has mainly been an Android show of sorts, but now it seems even the bigger Android manufacturers like Samsung and HTC are going the upscale route of holding their own events to announce their latest offerings instead of debuting at a conference like CTIA. There was still lots of *news* coming out of the event, just not the BIG news that us tech junkies like to see.
For the full skinny of CTIA 2012, check out Phil's recap post.
MORE = iMore.... with a 7" iPad rumor
Over on our sibling site iMore, Rene has been crazy busy on the rumormill front this week. It's almost been hard to keep up with everything, but the BIGGEST rumor to be reported was the word that Apple is working on releasing a 7.85" iPad that would sell at the $200-$250 price point.
Pretty interesting, especially considering back on October 18th, 2010 that Steve Jobs himself said that 7" tablets would be Dead On Arrival. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple did end up going this route. There is definitely a market for $200 tablets and Apple being Apple probably doesn't want to share if they don't have to.
Back in May 2011 we asked our readers if they'd prefer a 7" PlayBook or a 10" Playbook, to which 60% of respondents said they preferred the portability of a 7" PlayBook. I wonder how that survey would look if posed about the iPad.
Assemble the BlackBerry Avengers
We're still months aways from the release of BlackBerry 10 phones, but following BlackBerry World there is a renewed sense of enthusiasm towards BlackBerry. I'm feeling it in the CrackBerry community, I'm feeling it myself, and I'm seeing it elsewhere around the web. The BlackBerry Avengers are assembling... get ready for it!
After being out of my CrackBerry office on my last trip, I had to spend the better part of this week playing catch up. I'm excited to be *mainly* caught up though, as now I can turn my attention back to pumping out some editorials. It's been a while since I've had such a long list of article ideas to tackle, but there's just sooo much to talk about right now. So make sure you keep it locked to CrackBerry this week as a ton of good discussion is in store.
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From the Editor's Desk: Celebration and reflection
Hard to believe it's July already.
From the Editor's Desk: USA A-OK
After a fun weekend in NYC, the CrackBerry World Tour continues in the USA this week with Boston, Washington DC, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago about to feel some KEYone love!
From the Editor's Desk: A Few Awesome Announcements
As the 10 Years of CrackBerry fun continues and the launch of the BlackBerry KEYone nears, I have a few awesome announcements to make.
From the Editor's Desk: What city should we do a CrackBerry Meetup in next?
The vibe was so awesome at our Toronto CrackBerry Meetup with so much BlackBerry KEYone love in the air that I just have to take the CrackBerry Meetup show on the road. Where should I fly to next?