It’s time for BlackBerry DevCon, the developer conference for RIM’s BlackBerry platform. CEO Mike Lazaridis has taken the stage to open the conference and he’s talking about some pretty impressive numbers from the platform.
- 40% increase in subscribers in 1 year, from 40 to 70 mm subscribers.
- 165 million phones sold
- 28 mm BBM users, now more than 50 mm, 80% increase
- 35 mm BB App World users, up to 1 billion downloads, 5 mm downloads per day
BBX is the new platform for BlackBerry development, which Lazaridis says is the future of BlackBerry, unifying all its BlackBerry and QNX platforms.
- 100 standard libraries
- Porting of open-source libraries
- 50/50 mix of native and HTML5 environments
Interestingly, there aren’t many details being given about what BBX will be, other than the high-level ideas. There’s heavy talk about the gaming functions within BBX and how they can easily be ported, but other details are sorely lacking.
There is heavy talk about HTML5 integration and what goes into making this happen. Lazaridis appears to be overwhelmed by the capability of HTML5, including WebGL.
The remaining talk gets highly technical, as often happens during developer events. We’ll come back with a roundup of the important consumer-facing information once we are able to get a better look at what’s going to be offered.
The question remains – Are RIM’s days numbered in the smartphone and tablet market?
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