BlackBerry is now the number one selling smartphone in Africa/FILE
Regional Director at RIM Waldi Wepener said the new phones that run on the BlackBerry 7 Operating System (OS) are an addition to the growing demand for Blackberry smartphones in the African region.
“The latest statistics from Canada show that BlackBerry is now the number one selling smartphone in Africa and certainly Africa outside of South Africa is one of our fastest growing regions globally,” he said.
Wepener said a key feature available on the new BlackBerry 7 OS software is improved performance of the advanced WebKit browser engine among other enhancements.
“The user experience is slick and fluid. A major enhancement is in terms of the browser, so with BlackBerry 7 the browser is up to 40 percent faster than the BlackBerry 6 browser,” he said.
The four blackberry smart phones with the new software include the BlackBerry Curve 9360, BlackBerry Torch 9810, BlackBerry Torch 9860 and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 that has been in the Kenyan Market since September.
Meanwhile, Wepener mentioned RIM’s upcoming BBX operating system that will be released on BlackBerry tablets and smart phones early next year.
“RIM acquired a company called QNX and we’ve built the blackberry playbook platform on the QNX platform. QNX is used in motorcar operating systems so it’s very robust and solid. BBX will be the first platform to offer the QNX experience in a smart phone,” he said.
BBX OS will serve as a platform for mobile application developers making BlackBerry, PlayBook application development easy and profitable.
Wepener adds that RIM plans to run the BBX OS alongside the BlackBerry 7 platform in the future.
