Go Blackberry!
Does my heart good.
;)
Sent via My Verizon Motorola Droid Razor
RIM might not have a stand at CES and it isn't holding any press conferences, but its executives are busy on the floor talking up the handsets coming out at the January 30 launch. CMO Frank Boulben told FierceWireless that the launch would see two handsets running the BlackBerry 10 operating system, one full touchscreen device …
This is a key solution others (WP?) should have tried. Hackers are now pirating Android apps and selling them in the Blackberry App store. You should be able to side-load Android apps to kickstart the BB10 ecosystem, forcing the utility into the device even without the app-maker's intent or consent. Almost all of the myriad Android apps (but nothing with NDK).
Yes, it's not Kosher. It's not legit. It's cheating. RIM will have to put a stop to it eventually when somebody legally calls their attention to it. In the mean time though, it's enough of the fine end of a wedge to get a credible product launch.
Scrappy move, RIM. I had counted you out. While I can't morally approve of this maneuver I can respect that it's what you had to do, and therefore ethical. I award you five points and move your token from "doomed" to "at risk". I'd have preferred you just made RIM quality Android handsets in the first place, and got the Google Play store. Hubris being what it is though, I understand.
@Mikel,
"Yes, it's not Kosher. It's not legit." .... "While I can't morally approve of this maneuver I can respect that it's what you had to do, and therefore ethical."
It's alright Mikel, relax, Dalvik is open source. That's why Google chose it! It means that it is entirely ethical and legitimate (so long as RIM are complying with the license conditions).
Pirates will have to have been in email communication with RIM to get signing keys. They need those keys to re-package and upload apps to RIM's store. Then there's the money trail too (if the pirate has put a price on the application on the store). RIM are probably in a good position to help the original and wronged developers. Unlike Google who have created an ecosystem so anarchistic that piracy and malware are out of their control...
Look at it this way
Hmm, not sure I completely agree with you. I think MS could do quite well in the corporate market where Office and Exchange integration does matter to a lot of people. And that, of course, is RIM's hunting ground too.
Where I think MS have gone wrong is be utterly unimaginative in how they do integrate in the corporate environment. They have merely mimicked the old BB way of doing it. This means corporate IT admins will want to lock it down, stop users installing their own stuff, and make the phone a boring corporate tool.
What RIM have done is worked out that BOYD matters, but so does corporate security. BB10 is designed to keep both the admin and the user happy. "BlackBerry Balance" is quite clever; the phone has a split personality with the admin having control of one and the user having control of the other. Corporate email / apps / data are safe (it's achieved a FIPS rating) but the user can still have fun with their apps, email, twitter, etc.
BlackBerry Balance is a very novel concept, and a clever one at that. RIM are relying on corporate IT admins understanding it and having the imagination to see why the idea would benefit everyone including themselves. If RIM don't work very hard to stoke up interest in Balance then MS could get away with it.
Have you looked into locking down a Win8 phone using one of the current leading MDM providers? MS seem to be currently targetting the consumer rather than corporate market so, don't seem to have the relevant APIs published/available?
Corporates are probably quite happy as this means their staff won't be remotely tickling documents!