Apparently, according to Rim co-CEO, Jim Ballsillie, BlackBerry is all over the mobile music game...who knew? Yes - I have called fellow BlackBerry users only to be greeted with lovely answer rings, have heard special ringtones set for special people and have heard the occasional seasonal jingle set as a ringtone, but I don't think I ever realized BlackBerry thought of themselves as a direct competitor with the iPhone in the music category.
However, Boy Genius reports on Ballsillie saying: ?We've moved to [music] 2.0, where music is undergoing a radical transformation and it creates a remarkable new opportunity for content owners to monetize their content? [BlackBerry is] already very music centric, what were talking about now is our platform?, said Balisille referring to the BlackBerry Application Centre. ?We?re ingesting apps now and it goes online in March? [It has] a billing engine and is a channel for developers - you?ll see dozens of music apps.? But it gets better. ?We are the overwhelming market leaders and we've been in the smartphone business for years? The Storm is a BlackBerry with different packaging, not a competitor of iPhone.?
While I am very excited to see more music apps (I LOVE Virgin Mobile's Song ID app that lets you hold up your phone and ID music that you hear; that;s right, they have it too and were one of the first companies to come out with it), I am not so sure that BlackBerry will be the multimedia leader it thinks it will be. The Bold's QVGA screen is lovely (and long overdue), but for me, the Storm is huge disappointment compared to the iPhone - it's clunky and not nearly as smooth at the other. But, those are fightin' words, Jim. Let's see what you make happen.