WES Diary # 2 - Opening General Session

I have 30 minutes until the Solutions Showcase opens up (a.k.a. exhibit of hundreds of vendors), so I found a little corner in the Brass Lounge and it's time for a quick update.

WES started off this morning at 8:30am to a crowd of about 3,000 blackberry addicts. Crawford Del Prete, from the IDC, kicked things off, and from their RIM's founder and co-ceo Mike Lazaridis took the stage. There were no earth shaking announcements, but the big message was that it is the Application Providers that are going to take the BlackBerry to the next level, and that the next goal is to essentially replace the need to have an office phone by having the BlackBerry merge legacy PBX and IP phone systems into the Berry.

BlackBerry freed the business world from having to use their computer to check email, and the next goal is to free the corporate world from the office phone.  Example - you'll be able to just dial a party extension # on your berry as you would on your office line to reach someone within your company. 

After Mike finished up, next came the roundtable discussion on "Beyond Email". Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian was on hand, and man is this guy ever a good speaker and knowledgable.

Ooo..gotta cut this short for now. Lots to talk about, and all will come out in the days ahead, but don't want to miss anything right now!

  Mike Lazaridis talking about Competitive Advantage through Applications.

Going Beyond Email - Roundtable Discussion