This one we were sort of expecting since it’s been ongoing since BlackBerry World 2011.  We saw the same happen at BlackBerry DevCon Americas shortly after, and then DevCon Asia as well.  Now with DevCon Europe, attendees get the same fix as everyone else- Free BlackBerry PlayBooks!  If you’re attending, read more here on how and where to pick your free PlayBook tablet at the conference.

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced general availability of BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 – a new service for business and government organizations that extends Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry® smartphones and allows customers to manage their BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. The service is available at no additional charge to current medium-sized or enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online and works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans.

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We just let you know the big news on Thorsten Heins stepping up and becoming the new CEO of Research In Motion.  Here’s a video RIM posted up on their YouTube channel introducing the new CEO and seeing what he has to say about his future making big decisions.  A big point I see here is how he pretty much outlines that from now on when they have a new product or feature, they must ensure that they release it promptly as promised (reworded differently of course).  We’re excited for the new BlackBerry face, and hope that things change for the better from here on in.

• Board Acts on Recommendation of Co-CEOs to Implement Succession Plan 
• Mike Lazaridis Named Vice Chair of the Board
• Jim Balsillie Remains a Director
• Barbara Stymiest Named Independent Board Chair
• Prem Watsa Named Independent Director

Waterloo, ON – The Board of Directors of BlackBerry® maker Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced that, acting on the recommendation of its Co-Chief Executive Officers to implement the succession plan they previously submitted to the Board, it has unanimously named Thorsten Heins as President and Chief Executive Officer.  Mr. Heins was also appointed to RIM’s Board. The Board acted after conducting its own due diligence. Both appointments are effective immediately.

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Verizon has launched the BlackBerry Curve 9370 as expected previously.  The device is going for $99 on a two-year contract with a $50 mail-in rebate.  Pretty sweet deal for a BlackBerry supporting both GSM and CDMA.  Included in the device is a full QWERTY keyboard, no touchscreen, NFC built-in (yes!), a 5MP camera and more!  Click the link below to check out more details on the device.

Verizon BlackBerry Curve 9370 >>

The third beta release of BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0 is now available for Tablet OS. Improvements include tool enhancements, API improvements and more.  Here’s the change log:

Tooling enhancements:

• A new easy-to-use Add Library Wizard, which is designed to simplify the process of adding library dependencies to a project
• Improved navigation and workflow in the Deployment Setup Wizard
• Enhancements to the BAR file editor to view localized manifests for each locale

Jakarta, Indonesia - Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the new BlackBerry® Curve™ 9380 smartphone in Indonesia, the first-ever BlackBerry Curve model with a touch display. This sleek and stylish new smartphone is now available for 3,399,000IDR from authorized partners PT. Comtech Cellular, PT. Teletama Artha Mandiri and PT. Selular Media Infotama.

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First commercially available NFC-based mobile payments for BlackBerry smartphones via MasterCard PayPass™

Waterloo, ON and Istanbul, Turkey – Turkcell and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the commercial availability of an NFC mobile wallet application, the Turkcell Cep-T Cüzdan, for BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone customers in Turkey.

The power of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 combined with the Turkcell Cep-T Cüzdan application enables Turkcell customers to enjoy making payments in a simple, easy, safe and convenient way by simply tapping their NFC-enabled BlackBerry Bold 9900 against a MasterCard PayPass™ reader in shops, retail outlets, cafes and restaurants across Turkey. In addition, Turkcell customers travelling abroad will also be able make payments in the same way .   (more…)

Yesterday another infamous rumor emerged stating that Samsung was interested in purchasing RIM, and that RIM came to Samsung aggressively for an offer.  It’s nice to see the rumor squashed soon enough as Reuters got an official statement from James Chung who is a spokesman for Samsung.  “We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM),” is what he said.

The rumor once again came from a “trusted source” which obviously was not really reliable this instance and many others.

BlackBerry App World has a small update out today. Some of you may have received the notification to download while others it might take a bit. Again this is a small update for bugs users were experiencing when reinstalling an app. It’s a bit generic of a statement but it might be for users who did not have the reinstall option for some apps. I’ve seen it first hand myself, maybe some of you have. Any way, keep an eye out open for the update and let us know if it resolves any of your issues.

Source: BerryReview