BGR has learned that Research In Motion’s head of BlackBerry software may have left the company. Suresh Periyalwar, Senior Vice President of Handheld Software, had been with RIM since April 2001 when he joined as Director of Software Development. He came to the company from Nortel, where he managed CDMA-related development for more than five years. Periyalwar was promoted to SVP at RIM three years ago in May 2008 according to his LinkedIn profile, which still has him listed as a RIM employee. BGR has ...

RIM might have the enterprise market squarely in its sights with the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, but the sleek device is hardly all business. At Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, recent RIM acquisition The Astonishing Tribe was on hand to show off two applications built to demo some of the QNX-powered PlayBook’s capabilities. And as can only be expected from TAT-born apps, they’re stunning. The first, Scrapbook, is a scrapbooking app with a playful look and some terrific 3D UI ef...

In a note to investors Monday, Barclays Capital analyst Jeff Kvaal restated his “overweight” rating and set an $85 target for shares of RIM’s stock. Kvaal thinks the company will report a solid third quarter, and he believes current demand for the BlackBerry Torch to be “solid.” AT&T’s decision to drop the BlackBerry Torch to $99 last month played a big role in bolstering sales, the analyst believes, and he raised his Q3 estimates from 13.9 million units to 14.1 million...

RIM’s upcoming QNX-based OS is about to get a swift kick in the UI, as the company announced its acquisition of The Astonishing Tribe on Thursday. Also known as TAT, the team is renowned for its stunning UI work that often includes unique concepts that never manage to find their way to production devices. While TAT has done a great deal of work across several markets including automotive and consumer electronics, mobile platforms user experiences is where they shine and as any BlackBerry user will tell ...

We’re really not sure that this one has any weight to it all, but word is buzzing around the Symbian blogosphere in response to an assertion that S60 may be looking to TAT to help it modernize the UI. The rumors began in a forum and so far there hasn’t been much if any evidence to support this theory, but it would certainly be in line with the direction that S60 needs to go. Not that TAT’s Kastor UI is anything overly special, but this would go a long way in showing us that Nokia does in fac...