• Launch of the BlackBerry Developer’s Blog and technical webcast series!Over 200,000 Registered BlackBerry developers.
• Doubled the size of the developer community over the past year with substantial international growth.
• Launch of BlackBerry App World™ with follow up releases including a new client and a web store.
• Launch of the Developer Issue Tracker providing an open environment for developers to submit issues and feature requests tracked against Research In Motion’s internal development queue. An industry first!
• Best BlackBerry developer event ever with the 2009 BlackBerry® Developer Conference.
• BlackBerry Partners Fund Developer Challenge ends in a dramatic Final 16 showdown live at the BlackBerry Developer Conference and awards more than US $250,000 in prizes.
• Revamp of the BlackBerry® Developer Zone making it easier to find what you are looking for, download tools and get started developing.

• Launch of many new BlackBerry developer programs and resources including:
  1. Video tutorial library with videos now on YouTube®! Go to www.youtube.com/blackberry and select one of the developer playlists.
  2. BlackBerry Academic Program for mobile application development. Visit www.blackberry.com/developers/academic for more info.
  3. BlackBerry Certification Program for application developers. Visit www.blackberry.com/certification for more info.

• Launch of numerous developer tools and technologies including:
  1. BlackBerry® Java® Plug-in for Eclipse® v1.1, Beta 2 for Java developers.
  2. BlackBerry® Widget SDK v1.0 Beta 2 for web developers.
  3. Web development tools BlackBerry® Plug-in for Microsoft® Visual Studio® v1.2 and BlackBerry® Web Development Plug-in for Eclipse® v1.0.
  4. BlackBerry® Theme Studio v5.0 for BlackBerry theme developers.

To say it has been a great year would be an understatement. I’ve met thousands of great people who are passionate about mobile applications and the opportunities in the market. We have been working really hard to make it easier to be a BlackBerry developer from services to simulators and everything in between.

I am incredibly excited about 2010 and am looking forward to sharing that success with each of you. We will be taking a little time off on the blog until the New Year (back in action January 6th!) to celebrate the end of the year and prepare for a stellar 2010. If you have a chance over the holidays, please post a comment with suggestions or feedback, as we love receiving input from the community.