BlackBerry 10 Development Device appears, looks a lot like a mini PlayBook

We're just a day away from BlackBerry World 2012 and BlackBerry Jam in Orlando (stay tuned for our live reports starting tomorrow afternoon) and there's already a photo of the BlackBerry 10 development device which RIM is expected to seed to lucky developers. More images of the device can be seen at CrackBerry.com. 

If this is indeed a real device and not a clevery Photoshopped hoax, it looks like a multi-touch slate (no physical keyboard!) that has borrowed freely from the materials and design of the PlayBook. It looks sturdy and reasonably rugged. It also appears to have a front facing camera and a rear camera with an LED flash. Other than that, it is hard to tell what this thing can do or how the QNX OS will look on it. I'm crossing my fingers that we will see a preview in the coming days.

SourceCode: RIM's Year of Living Dangerously

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

2011 has been Research In Motion’s annus horribilis. The past 12 months, the BlackBerry maker has often found itself in the news and on the defensive for a long list of truly unfortunate and often embarrassing reasons. But how serious is the situation at RIM?

The company was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago and today has a market value of around $8 billion. In 2004, RIM's stock value was $144 a share, when the markets closed Friday it was $13.44 a share.

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RIM's Bets on next generation OS to initiate turnaround

Announced today was a unified platform for tablets and for smartphones that is hinged on the QNX OS used in the BlackBerry PlayBook, which was RIM's answer to Apple's iPad.

"We’re absolutely committed to the PlayBook, there’s no doubt,” Mr. Lazaridis said. “Now, let’s talk more about how you, the developer, can make money. BlackBerry is a very profitable platform to develop for.” RIM is trying to reassure its app developers to remain with the company and focus their efforts on the PlayBook which we found to be a promising device in terms of hardware but which suffers from a lack of compelling consumer applications.

Check below for the full press release and nitty gritty from RIM

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Brand Finance: Beleaguered BlackBerry Brand loses $1 Billion in value

The latest analysis from Brand Finance plc. demonstrates that most leading Canadian brands are continuing to recover from the recession, with sustained increases in brand value since January. The combined value of the top 10 Canadian brands has now reached $47.3bn. However this is still a billion dollars less than the value of the world's most valuable brand, Google ($48.3bn).

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