• blackberry,  blackberry tablet os,  blackpad,  citrix,  rim

    Citrix Receiver Coming to BlackBerry PlayBook

    September 29, 2010 /

    In a community blog post yesterday afternoon, Citrix Vice President of Community and Solutions Development, Chris Fleck, stated that the Citrix Receiver application is headed for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook.

    “The planned Citrix Receiver for PlayBook will provide a great user experience while making all the company virtual apps and desktops available on-demand anywhere.” He also notes, “PlayBook users will get the freedom to get work done from anywhere with access to any business app they need.”

    Mr. Fleck also writes:

    “No doubt the PlayBook will do a good job with email and the browser will work well for browsing, but with the 7″ HD display, business users will also want access to all their business apps or even their full Windows 7 work environment. One way to enable that will be the Citrix Receiver for PlayBook, just as 100 million users use Citrix everyday to get virtual apps and desktops delivered to their PC, Mac, thin client or smartphone. The highly regarded Receiver for iPad for example is now one of the top app store business downloads and is used by professionals everywhere to be more productive without the chore of lugging a laptop.”

    Alan’s Comments

    Having Citrix standing behind your product will no doubt put corporate buyer’s minds at ease because Citrix is recognized as a secure way to deploy applications to a mobile workforce.  With the PlayBook’s connection to RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Citrix’s secure application delivery platform, it looks like they are ready for their play date.

    You can read the full post on the Citrix Community blog.

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  • blackberry,  blackberry tablet os,  blackpad,  rim,  tablet

    RIM Unveils the BlackBerry PlayBook

    September 28, 2010 /

    New Professional-Grade Tablet Delivers Unmatched Power and Web Performance

    San Francisco, CA – BlackBerry DEVCON 2010 – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today redefined the possibilities for mobile computing with the unveiling of its new professional-grade BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® Tablet OS.
    Perfect for either large organizations or an “army of one”, the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers. The incredibly powerful and innovative BlackBerry PlayBook is truly a game-changing product in the growing tablet marketplace.

    “RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world’s most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia.”

    Availability

    The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.
    RIM will begin working with developers and select corporate customers next month to begin development and early testing efforts.

    For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/playbook.

    BlackBerry PlayBook pictures and specs after the break…

    The Tablet You’ll Want to Take Everywhere

    This beautifully designed and incredibly powerful tablet is ultra portable, ultra thin and super convenient for both work and play. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a vivid 7” high resolution display that looks and feels great in your hand. With such a unique mix of utility, performance and portability, you’ll want to take it everywhere.

    The New Benchmark in Tablet Performance

    At its heart, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a multitasking powerhouse. Its groundbreaking performance is jointly fueled by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS which supports true symmetric multiprocessing. Together, the abundant processing power and highly sophisticated OS enable the BlackBerry PlayBook to provide users with true multitasking and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen experience for apps and content services.

    Uncompromised Web Browsing

    With support for Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, Adobe® Mobile AIR® and HTML-5, the BlackBerry PlayBook provides customers with an uncompromised, high-fidelity web experience and offers them the ability to enjoy all of the sites, games and media on the web. For more than a decade, the mobile industry has worked to bridge the gap between the “real web” and mobile devices through various apps and technologies and, in fact, a significant number of mobile apps today still simply serve as a proxy for web content that already exists on the web. The BlackBerry PlayBook closes that gap and brings the real, full web experience to mobile users while also opening new and more exciting opportunities for developers and content publishers.

    High Performance Multimedia

    The BlackBerry PlayBook features premium multimedia features to support high-quality mobile experiences. It includes dual HD cameras for video capture and video conferencing that can both record HD video at the same time, and an HDMI-out port for presenting one’s creations on external displays. The BlackBerry PlayBook also offers rich stereo sound and a media player that rivals the best in the industry.

    BlackBerry Integration

    For those BlackBerry PlayBook users who carry a BlackBerry smartphone*, it will also be possible to pair their tablet and smartphone using a secure Bluetooth® connection. This means they can opt to use the larger tablet display to seamlessly and securely view any of the email, BBM™, calendar, tasks, documents and other content that resides on (or is accessible through) their smartphone. They can also use their tablet and smartphone interchangeably without worrying about syncing or duplicating data. This secure integration of BlackBerry tablets and smartphones is a particularly useful feature for those business users who want to leave their laptop behind.

    Enterprise Ready

    Thanks to the seamless and secure Bluetooth pairing experience and the highly secure underlying OS architecture, the BlackBerry PlayBook is enterprise ready and compatible (out-of-the-box) with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. When connected over Bluetooth, the smartphone content is viewable on the tablet, but the content actually remains stored on the BlackBerry smartphone and is only temporarily cached on the tablet (and subject to IT policy controls). With this approach to information security, IT departments can deploy the BlackBerry PlayBook to employees out-of-the-box without worrying about all the security and manageability issues that arise when corporate data is stored on yet another device.

    QNX Neutrino Reliability

    The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture, one of the most reliable, secure and robust operating system architectures in the world. Neutrino has been field hardened for years and is being used to support mission-critical applications in everything from planes, trains and automobiles to medical equipment and the largest core routers that run the Internet.  The new BlackBerry Tablet OS leverages and builds upon the many proven strengths of this QNX Neutrino architecture to support a professional grade tablet experience and to redefine the possibilities for mobile computing.

    Key features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook include:

    • 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
    • BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
    • 1 GHz dual-core processor 
    • 1 GB RAM 
    • Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording 
    • Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
    • Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA 
    • HDMI video output
    • Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n 
    • Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
    • Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
    • Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
    • Ultra thin and portable
      • Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
      • Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g) 
    • Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
    • RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

    * This feature will require a Bluetooth connection, obviously, between your BlackBerry smartphone and the BlackBerry PlayBook.

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  • blackberry,  blackpad,  rim

    BlackPad To Be Announced This Week?

    September 26, 2010 /

    Tomorrow is the kick-off of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry DevCon in San Francisco, California.  During the keynote session, BlackBerry fanatics are expecting the unveiling of a new device, the BlackPad.

    “The Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 22 that RIM will unveil the BlackPad at its 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference, which runs from Sept. 27 through Sept. 30 in San Francisco.

    While RIM did not comment on the report or the tablet number for eWEEK, the Journal said the 7-inch-screen BlackPad, which will sport two cameras, including one for video conferencing, will feature a new platform built by QNX Software Systems.” (eWeek.com…)

    With the Apple iPad very much a consumer product, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab clearly leaning in the same direction, we have to wonder if the BlackPad will have the features to get enterprise customers excited.  iOS and Android have proven to be very flexible mobile operating systems and we’ve seen what developers can do with them.  However, the QNX-based operating system rumored to power the BlackPad will be completely untested, as far as we know, and I for one, will be looking to see if application developer will be willing to adopt yet another OS to write applications for.

    We’ll cover be covering all of the goodies that are unveiled this week from RIM.

    [Graphic via PCWorld.com…]

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