RIM whistles past the graveyard. I believe this company will have little option except to be sold by the end of 2012. It’s hard to imagine another telecommunication company who has missed the mark as badly as RIM – except maybe Nokia.

Any of you who are BlackBerry users have likely noticed the service has been spotty the last several days. Sadly  Research in Motion (RIM)  doesn’t seem to know exactly what caused the problem, when it will be completely resolved – and presumably if they can’t understand the problem cannot promise it won’t recur.

One of BlackBerry’s key selling points is managing security, infrastructure and timely delivery of important email messages. When you take that away – what’s left?

I believe we have just seen the key event that will ultimately result in a BlackBerry sale or top management turnover. Perhaps both. This may not happen immediately but in my opinion the BlackBerry platform appears to be on shaky ground. The BlackBerry platforms key weakness is that it requires all email to be funneled through RIM servers thus introducing a potential catastrophic point of failure.

The outage will soon be forgotten as service returns to normal – however business and consumer confidence which already appears to be quickly shifting may forever be lost.

Outage may spell major trouble for Research in Motion

This version works with OS 4.3+ and requires either a Bold, Tour or Curve model (that’s right – no Storm support at the moment).

The application is  quite good. The main benefits over the iPhone version being deep integration to the native BlackBerry inbox (try that on the iPhone!).

LinkedIN for BlackBerry resembles the Facebook for BlackBerry program.

The design is not as pretty as that on the LinkedIn for iPhone interface — though the integration goes so much deeper that you’ll probably want to use the BlackBerry LinkedIN version.

In fact I’m going to declare the LinkedIn for BlackBerry application as a key reason (for those of us on LinkedIn)  to use a BlackBerry. I believe it’s going to be an essential business tool for almost any serious BlackBerry user.

Here’s why.

One of the coolest things about the BlackBerry LinkedIN application is how tightly it connects to your inbox.

Here’s what LinkedIn say’s about the integration:

Native features of LinkedIn for BlackBerry include:

• Contacts.  Integrate your LinkedIn connections with your BlackBerry address book, and view the profile of any contact directly on your BlackBerry.
• Messages.  LinkedIn invitations and messages will now appear in your BlackBerry Inbox, just like any other email.  You can also view the LinkedIn profile of the sender of any email you receive.
• Calendar.  You can now view the LinkedIn profile of any attendee of a meeting on your BlackBerry calendar.

Now, right from the convenience of your primary BlackBerry applications, you can easily select “View LinkedIn Profile”, and view the full LinkedIn public profile for anyone. Whether it’s a meeting invitation, an email, or an address book contact, you can get the information you need about someone, anytime, anywhere.

So, how does it work in practice? Is it as good as they say?

In a word – yes.

When you receive an email, you’re able to read that mail as you always would. What LinkedIN for BlackBerry adds is a menu (accessible right from the BlackBerry inbox) where you can request to view the profile of the person who has just sent you an email.

How handy is that!?

Clicking on the view profile takes me right to Mark’s LinkedIn page. This is a very handy feature for those of us who do most of our work in the field and are not near a computer from which to look up someone’s LinkedIn profile.

For BlackBerry users who are also heavy LinkedIN users – this is a killer feature of the BlackBerry LinkedIN application.

There are even more cool features – you can comment on a contact’s status update:

View a list of all your contacts — including their REAL email addresses. Amazingly the LinkedIn application allows you to either use the native LinkedIn mail application for messaging or you can view the true email of your contacts and send a normal email through BlackBerry email.

Not sure if someone is a LinkedIn member? Search for them from your BlackBerry LinkedIn Application

The BlackBerry version of LinkedIn isn’t as sexy as the iPhone. However the deep integration to the inbox, ability to review the LinkedIn profile of anyone who sends you an email and the ease with which you can comment on status updates make it a keeper.

Limitations of LinkedIN for BlackBerry

There’s a lot to like about the LinkedIN for BlackBerry 1.0 application.

And a few things that I’d like to see.

First, there needs to be support for the BlackBerry Storm asap. The lack of a version that will run on the Storm is puzzling and here’s hoping that a version update will fix this is the very near future.

Second, I’d like to see the ability to participate in discussion areas via LinkedIn for BlackBerry. Starting and participating in discussions is one of the most high value uses of the LinkedIn service and I’d like the ability to start and reply to discussions from my BlackBerry. I’d also like to see new discussions appear in my main BlackBerry inbox.

How To Obtain LinkedIn for BlackBerry

If you’re in the United States, search the BlackBerry App World for LINKEDIN.

If you’re outside the United States you can visit BlackBerry LinkedIn Download.

For more screen shots of the LinkedIn for BlackBerry application – visit my Picasa web album.

via: LinkedIn Blog – LinkedIn for BlackBerry: Anytime, Anywhere

connect: Wayne Schulz on LinkedIn

After arriving at a client site you find that you’re missing that one CD required to complete a software installation?

In the past I’ve tried creating a master set of CDs and carefully inserted them into a looseleaf binder. The problem? I kept leaving the most important ones behind in the client’s CD tray. Then I’d go to look for it at the next client and the CD that I needed was missing!

I’ve rushed into the office on days that I knew I had to be out on-site with a client and hustled to burn the CD’s that I thought I might need. What I found is this always resulted in the client  having the exact CDs  needed and my early morning dash to the office was for nothing.

Instead I’m going to tell you how you can completely solve the problem of always having every CD at your fingertips without spending any extra time or pre-planning. It’s dirt cheap – and as a plus if a client ever calls to say they can’t find their Crystal Reports Disks (or insert favorite application disk that clients love to lose) – then you can send a copy to the client via your iPhone/BlackBerry or Android device in seconds.The solution that I’ve been using for well over a year now is Sugarsync.

This brilliantly simple solution allows you to synchronize an entire folder (and all subfolders) from your local computer to their servers (aka – the clouds).

What I do to make this work  is immediately take any of the source CDs that I receive in the office and use a common utility like Winzip to make them into one compressed file.

Then on my local computer I have a folder structure such as:

Source Disks\

Then beneath that I may have

\CrystalDisks\Version 8.5

\CrystalDisks\Version 10

Anything that I place into the \Source Disks\ subfolders automatically synchronizes up to Sugarsyncs servers.

Once the files are stored on the Sugarsync servers then I can have access to them either:

• Via the web
• Via the free iPhone application
• Via the free BlackBerry application
• Via the free Android application

The beauty of this system is that it’s ridiculously easy to send a client a complete set of source CDs right from your smartphone.

Here’s an example of how my Sugarsync iPhone application is setup.

By clicking on any of these folders I have access to my entire version library of CDs.

For example — if a client is missing a Crystal 8.5 Disk – I can navigate to the Crystal Disks folder (shown above) within which I have all my relevant Crystal Reports source disks zipped up.

Now to send a copy to a client (all that’s actually sent is a private URL for them to download the file from) I click on the set of disks and am prompted to enter the email address that I would like to send the link to.

I can enter a message to indicate that the files they need are included in the link.

If you aren’t using Sugarsync to store all of your source disks then you’re just working too hard. The cost is $99 per year for 60 GB of storage. Other plans are available here.

Link: Sugarsync

But really, who buys a BlackBerry to play music?

This is slated to be T-Mobile’s low end BlackBerry and you’ll be able to find it widely available for free. The problem is the service isn’t free and you’ll pay top dollar in monthly voice and data only to be attached to a low end BlackBerry that takes crappy photos.