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BlackBerry may be launching a new platform in certain markets to try to win back users, but it’s focusing on service additions in other places where the BlackBerry install base remains strong. Today it’s officially launching BBM Money in Indonesia, in partnership with PermataBank and Monitise to bring real-time mobile payments to BlackBerry’s platform-specific social network and messaging service.

The service (tipped late last year) allows BlackBerry users to create a mobile money account attached to their BBM identity, and use that to transfer money to other BBM contacts, as well as purchase airtime credit for their device, or move money to bank accounts. The mobile payments play will mean that million of Indonesian BBM customers will be able to quickly conduct business transactions right in the service where many of them already communicate on business matters, and allow merchants and others to quickly accept payments with the devices they already own without requiring the involvement of any third-party device or software.

Market saturation of phones overall in Indonesia is high, and BlackBerry is the number one selling smartphone in the country, which makes it a logical place to launch a mobile money service that requires both parties to have BlackBerries to work. Monitise Group Strategy Director Richard Johnson went into more detail about just why the Indonesian market was such a perfect fit for this launch.

“BlackBerry Messenger is the dominant short message communication platform in Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world with 240 million people,” he said in an interview. “There is also the country’s 90 percent mobile penetration and the fact that BlackBerry is the number one selling mobile smartphone there – more than half of all smartphones sold in Indonesia are BlackBerry devices. At a global level, what is really exciting here with real-time chat evolving through real-time engagement, is that you are effectively taking a social network and turning it into a payment network.”

Users aren’t charged for sending money between BBM contacts, or topping up their airtime minutes on a prepaid SIM using the service. They do incur normal banking and mobile rates, however, depending on their specific bank’s policies regarding fund transfers, and on their mobile plan. It work with any device running BlackBerry OS 5 or higher, with BBM 6 or higher, though it isn’t available on BB10 (which is of little consequence, since it has yet to launch in Indonesia anyway).

BBM Money does two key things for BlackBerry: It helps entrench the service in markets where BlackBerry is still the smartphone platform of choice, and it offers yet another opportunity for service differentiation to continue to help evolve BBM into something more than similar offerings from Apple (iMessage) and third parties (Kik, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger). Should the pilot go well, I’d expect to see further launches in other markets where BlackBerry needs to dig in to help keep its lead, like Nigeria and South Africa.

With the final release of BlackBerry 10 coming up in a special event scheduled for the 30th of January, it’s no wonder we’re seeing a blast of interest in everything RIM – today’s leak being a set of slides showing BBM boosts and a new task manager. This set of slides shows that BlackBerry Messenger is set to be updated in a big way with both full-on video chat and screen sharing for all. Also on the docket is a fully upgraded task manager for those of you hoping to keep your tasks in order – notes and all.

This update shows the new task manager as an element entitled “BlackBerry Remember.” Here you’ll be able to sync with Outlook for email and work directly with Evernote right out of the box. This information has been shown in the slides here and now as well as in the original gold SDK provided by RIM quite recently.

With BBM you’ll soon be able to share much more intuitively, too. You’ll be able to capture a photo, tap one of your vast collection of apps to share outright – Picasa, Facebook, Flickr, and more veing shown right here in slide form, add comments, and share. You can share to one person or to your newly forge BBM Group if you wish. You’ll be able to “seamlessly” transfer between video chat and screen sharing as well – great for directions for businesses.

With BlackBerry Remember you’re going to be able to capture and keep clean all of your notes from all different directions. You can “turn ideas into action”, so say the leaked slides here, and sync with a variety of services. Microsoft Outlook is, of course, first on the list of connections, and Evernote has been tipped more than once as well.

[via CrackBerry]

BlackBerry 10 slides leak video chat and screen sharing via BBM is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

BBM for the Blackberry Playbook tablet has long been teased and we’re sure that many Playbook owners are still waiting, or have probably given up by now. While a release date for the app has yet to be announced by RIM, screenshots from the Blackberry Playbook have been spotted (via BBOTA.cn) with a native BBM app running on top of it. We can’t confirm if these screenshots are indeed the native version of BBM for the Playbook, but if they are, what do you guys think? At the moment BBM can be run on the Playbook but it requires Blackberry Bridge and a Blackberry smartphone, meaning that if you bought the Playbook without owning a Blackberry smartphone, you would be out of luck. While BBM via Blackberry Bridge no doubt gets the job done, there are some features missing that we’re sure Blackberry owners would love to see on the Playbook. In any case we’ll keep our eyes peeled for a possible release date – who knows, maybe RIM will announce it on the 30^th of January at their Blackberry 10 launch!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia’s Windows RT Tablet Will Sport A Battery-Equipped Keyboard Cover [Rumor], Samsung GT-N5100 spotted on GLBenchmarks,

It’s a red letter day for BlackBerry-owning Facebookers, as version 3.3 of the platform’s native app has arrived. BBM has been woven deep into the update, enabling you to initiate chats and find friends using your pin contacts. Of course, if you do that, you might find yourself friending too many people who share the minutiae of their lives — so the Zuck has also added easy un-friending to the mix as well. You can snag the update from the BlackBerry App World, which we’ve thoughtfully added for you down at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, RIM, Facebook

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Source: Inside BlackBerry, BlackBerry App World

RIM has given the official word that it will be adding a financial feature to its BlackBerry Messenger App called “Money.” The upcoming feature will allow BBM users to transfer funds from their phone. It’s slated for release in Indonesia first, with the only timeline given being that it’ll happen “shortly,” with other locations to follow.

Word that RIM has such a feature planned has been circulating for awhile, but this is the first time any official confirmation has been given. When visiting Jakarta several weeks ago, the company’s CEO Thorsten Heins hinted at this feature, saying that BlackBerry Messenger is as strong of a platform for financial transactions as it is for communication. RIM’s Managing Director of South Asia Operations Hastings Singh then offered BBC this statement in an interview.

“Indonesia is very important for RIM. It is a huge market for us … So we are offering a new innovation – BBM Money which will be launched in Indonesia – first in the world – shortly. It is a peer-to-peer transfer service that anyone with a Blackberry phone can use to transfer funds to someone else with a Blackberry phone.”

BlackBerry has been losing ground in the market, with government agencies dropping it in favor of more popular mobile operating systems, including the NTSB, while consumers largely select either Android or the iPhone. Despite its trouble battling against Android and iOS, BlackBerry is still massively popular in Indonesia, where it has over 50-percent of the marketshare. There’s no info on when Money will be available in Indonesia and beyond, but perhaps we’ll know more once BB10 launches next year.

[via Tech Crunch]

BlackBerry Messenger Money app set to launch in Indonesia is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.