The message at the BlackBerry Jam Asia General Session as it kicked off in Hong Kong this morning was loud and clear: we remain focused. We remain focused on providing the best mobility platform for our users. We remain committed to our developers, customers and consumers. We will continue to dedicate ourselves to delivering a vision for the future that puts mobile first and will once again change the way the world thinks about and interacts with technology.
BlackBerry Jam Asia General Session
Alec Saunders, VP of Developer Relations, kicked off the BlackBerry Jam Asia General Session with a look at what has been accomplished since the beginning of the year, including:
- Launching a new operating system and two updates;
- Launching five new devices;
- Rolling out the BES 10 platform, the server software which has been downloaded more than 25,000 times; launching the beta of BBM Channels; and,
- For developers, introducing more analytics support, better gaming engines and six new Cascades and Native Samples to our Github repository.
Partnerships with Developers in Asia Pacific
With the bar set high, Marty Mallick VP, Global Alliances and Business Development, turned the focus to our partnerships with developers in Asia Pacific.
The success developers have had with BlackBerry 10 is evident with nine out of ten here in the APAC region willing to recommend it as a development platform and with users racking up twice the downloads per user, paid downloads five times as high and seven times the revenue per user as compared to BlackBerry OS.
With 37% of apps in BlackBerry World developed in Asia Pacific, the audience was keen to hear from the likes of Sina Weibo, WeChat, SayIt and Kreta Api about their experiences creating native apps for the BlackBerry 10 platform.
The team from Malmö showed off their latest invention – Rocking Chair Pong – as a challenge for developers to think beyond the device and develop for the endless possibilities in the world around them.
Concept Demo of BlackBerry 10 on a Desktop
The keynote closed with a concept demo depicting how BlackBerry 10 could extend onto a desktop environment – a demonstration that showed how applications could be projected from a BlackBerry 10 device onto a computer running Windows or Mac OS.
Early reactions from attendees at the event have been very positive so far. Over the next two days developers and partners will be challenged to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the mobile space using the power of BlackBerry 10.
And One More Thing…
We’re very excited about what the future has in store for BlackBerry and for you, our awesome, dedicated developers. Our developer community and application development partners are an integral part of what we are building. Their applications are at the core of what people want from their smartphone experience. If you want to learn more and hear about some of the awesome projects from BlackBerry and your peers in action, then be sure to follow on Twitter at @BlackBerryDev and join our Facebook community!