Research In Motion just hit us up to let us know that registration has officially opened for BlackBerry World 2011. Ah, but what is BlackBerry World 2011, some of you might be asking yourselves? It’s WES renamed — news we broke a couple months back, remember? It’s being held May 3rd to the 5th in sunny Orlando, Florida and will feature over 100 breakout sessions, hands-on labs, BlackBerry training, and of course, live productions demonstrations and announcements. Might we be seeing the BlackBerry Bold Dakota, BlackBerry Curve Apollo, BlackBerry Storm 3 Monaco, or BlackBerry Torch 2 make an appearance? You betcha’!

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Just like we reported a little while back, RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symnposoium has been renamed, and the new official name is BlackBerry World. RIM let us know that:

BlackBerry World will feature keynotes from leading mobile thinkers, over 100 breakout sessions, Hands-on Labs, BlackBerry training, and opportunities for certification.

Attendees of BlackBerry World will also be able to:

• Hear the most current information about the BlackBerry solution, new application partners, and roadmaps for the future
• See live demonstrations of the BlackBerry solution at work
• Get answers from BlackBerry experts to develop value-driven wireless solutions, as well as carriers and vendors who can help provide valuable wireless research information
• Meet and connect with key executives who are making the BlackBerry solution part of their business planning, and the industry leaders who are shaping the future of global wireless technology
• Get training on the BlackBerry platform, with additional opportunities for technical certification

In addition to that, RIM is still making all the WES tracks and content available at BlackBerry World. What’s the consensus on the new name and focus of the conference? Anything is better than Wireless Enterprise Symposium in our book… BlackBerry World will take place from May 3rd through May 5th next year in Orlando, FL.

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We have just heard from multiple sources that Research In Motion will be renaming its popular annual developer conference, the Wireless Enterprise Symposium. In addition to a name change, we’re told that the company will be changing the direction of the conference to better reflect RIM’s current focus on its QNX operating system as well as other developer content. RIM will also be broadening the general scope of the event beyond just enterprise, hence the name change. What’s the new name? That hasn’t been communicated to us yet, but drop your suggestions in the comments.

P.S. Maybe will.i.am, Futurist, has some suggestions?

Just a moment ago, during our live blog coverage of the day one WES keynote, we made mention of a BlackBerry 6 video that was actually quite good.  RIM has just posted said video up on YouTube for the world to see. Hit the jump and enjoy!

Live from the Cypress 2 Ballroom at the Marriott World Convention Center, BGR proudly presents the WES 2010 keynote. The lights are dimming as we speak and we’re all settled in for the show, so hit up the jump to check out our live blog of all the festivities!

8:46 AM: Here we go, lights down… Black Eyed Peas on the juke box.

8:46 AM: RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis has taken the stage.

8:47 AM: Customers bought 10.5 million BB’s last quarter, BB community is 41 million users strong.

8:48 AM: “What we do comes down to one thing, making the BlackBerry more usable and accessable to more people.

8:48 AM: “Today you’re going to see some amazing new software.

8:49 AM: “You’re goign to see some new deivces.” God, we hope so.

8:49 AM: Showing chart about the efficiency and cost effectiveness of BlackBerry platform.

8:50 AM: “Email was the original BlackBerry supeapp, now developers can take advantage of the BlackBerry platform to deliver there own super app.”

8:51 AM: Seeing video on “super apps”

8:52 AM: Super Apps are: an integrated, visual experience

8:53 AM: Talking up BBM: “BBM is all about delivering the best communication experience, right now.”

8:53 AM: BBM has over 20 million users

8:54 AM: BBM, “transforms the way people work and play.”

8:55 AM: We’re talking hardware now, high level stuff, not specific devices.

8:55 AM: “5 of top 10 best selling smartphones in the U.S. are BlackBerrys”

8:56 AM: “People want choice…”

8:56 AM: Talking about the Bold 9650

8:56 AM: “This is the ultimate global CDMA smartphone.”

8:57 AM: “The Bold family already includes some of the worlds most popular smartphones…we’re expanding that.”

8:57 AM: “We’re launching the white BlackBerry Bold 9700 in North America.”

8:58 AM: “Introducing the smallest, lightest, smartphone in our lineup: the Pearl 3G.”

8:59 AM: Basically Mike is doing a re-cap of yesterdays announcements.

8:59 AM: “Tons of power and performance into a small package, with no compromises.”

9:00 AM: Talking about: “The Next Step”

9:00 AM: “Today I’m proud to show you the biggest step forward…BlackBerry 6″

9:00 AM: Had to: “Feel fresh yet familiar, instantly recognizable, easy to use, powerful, fun, and approachable.”

9:01 AM: We’re seeing a video on BlackBerry 6

9:03 AM: Some of the screenshots in the video have already been seen on BGR, Mike ;)

9:02 AM: Video is a lot of flash, includes Fergie. We are seeing a full touch screen demo with: multitouch in action, new menus, global search, redesigned calendar, multiple home screens, total redesign of UI

9:04 AM: “There are a lot of enhancements that will delight everyone.”

9:04 AM: “We’ve redesigned all the core applications”

9:04 AM: “We’ve got a new app for managing social networks and view RSS feeds.”

9:05 AM: “WebKit browser will be an integral part of BlackBerry 6.”

9:05 AM: “More rewarding, faster, and simpler to use.”

9:05 AM: “BlackBerry 6 will launch next calendar quarter.”

9:06 AM: Mike is wrapping up now.

9:07 AM: “Before I go I want to give you one last surprise.”

9:07 AM: Hip Hop artist Will.I.Am

9:08 AM: Mr. I.Am is talking about the value of BlackBerry

9:08 AM: “A tool I use to connect on an entertainment level, it allows me to delivery content and connect with fans.”

9:09 AM: “I’m here because I want to be here, I’m passionate about this device…trumpets connect people, so does this device, thank you guys.”

9:10 AM: Mike and Will.I.Am are both off stage, we’re seeing some vendor testimonials on video.

9:36 AM: We’ve been listening to HP talk for around 20 minutes, and, well, it’s not really our cup of tea.

So check it out… RIM’s huge BlackBerry hullabaloo, Wireless Enterprise Symposium, or “WES”, officially kicks off tomorrow in sunny Orlando, but that didn’t stop the Waterloo folks from busting out two — count ‘em, two — hot new smartphones prior to all of the festivities. Wanna know what they are? Hit the jump to find out.

BlackBerry loving, code division multiple access junkies rejoice, as today, RIM announced the latest addition to its CDMA BlackBerry portfolio: the BlackBerry Bold 9650. We would love to say we didn’t know the 9650 was coming…but we’d be lying. Here is the skinny on the new addition to the Bold family: CDMA EV-DO world phone with support for HSPA and UTMS (2100 MHz) networks, Wi-Fi b/g, optical trackpad, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, 4.4” x 2.4” x .56” and 4.8 oz., 512 MB of flash memory, microSDHC card support up to 32 GB, 1400 mAhr battery, and BlackBerry OS 5 — the press release did not list a processor clock speed. The new handset will be available in the U.S. in May. Not exactly the most  earth-shattering announcement, but hey… it’s something.

Then there’s the Pearl 3G. If the Bold 9650 was a phone we could see coming from miles away, the Pearl 3G could be seen from the exosphere. Just a touch smaller than the original Pearl 8100 at 108mm x 50mm x 13.5mm, the 3G is said to offer, “uncompromising performance and top–of-the-line features,” which include: 360×400 display, 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, Wi-Fi b/g/n (a RIM first), GPS with BlackBerry Maps, 256MB of flash memory, microSDHC support up to 32GB, 1150 mAhr battery, and BlackBerry OS 5.0 — all of which is kept purring by a 624MHz processor. The Pearl 3G will be available with a SureType keypad (model 9100) as well as with a traditional T9 keypad (model 9105). Why is RIM just now making a smartphone with a T9 keypad? According to RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, “more than three-quarters of the people in the global mobile phone market are still buying handsets with a traditional alphanumeric keypad, we think the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G addresses a substantial market opportunity. It allows consumers to upgrade their traditional mobile phone to a full-featured, easy-to-use and fashionable 3G BlackBerry smartphone [...] while maintaining a handset design and layout that is familiar and comfortable.” The Pearl 3G will be available for a multitude of carriers starting in May.

We’ve got the official press releases linked up for you below.

Read – Bold 9650

Read – Pearl 3G

If you’re a BlackBerry fan, there is probably not a single thing you have been looking forward to more than what we have right here — screenshots and full details of RIM’s upcoming operating system, OS 6.0. One of our AT&T sources has not only showed us the brand new OS, but has also given us some screenshots that we could share. Since we have seen OS 6.0 in action first hand, we will break it down for you guys, along with all the other screenshots, after the break!

You can see the new browser that RIM has skinned up, complete with tab switching, new favorites, and multitouch. Yes, multitouch. The browser looks like it’s coming along quite nicely, all WebKit!

Here’s the actual tab switcher view, with nice transparent overlay. No word on how many open tabs you can keep simultaneously.

Finally, a redone media player, and it doesn’t look half bad, right? The navigation in this view is done by using your finger to browse the album art work and then touching the specific album cover to start playing.

Here is what we can tell you about OS 6.0 that we saw in action… RIM has finally implemented system-wide kinetic scrolling with rubberbanding. This makes the experience a bit more fluid when scrolling through lists, web pages, emails, and the like. There is also multitouch system-wide, from the web browser to the photos application, and yes, pinch to zoom is in there.

Looking at the actual message inbox, things look a bit cleaner, and a bit more modern, but it’s obviously not a huge departure from what we have now, just another evolutionary upgrade which is par for the course with RIM. But, we definitely do like the look of the new inbox. It also features larger thumbnails to the left of each message to identify the type of message (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and we even saw RSS feeds built right in which looked great. We can’t describe this part… but the new inbox feels right. It’s not all work and dry, and it’s not over the top with cheesy graphics or animations, rather a nice compromise of the two.

Something big for OS 6.0 is the homescreen. While we didn’t see any sort of widget support, it appears RIM has made the homescreen completely customizable with pages. You can have your applications on the main page, then slide left or right to another page with different applications and browse that way. In the homescreen screenshot above, you’ll see a sliding field towards the bottom, and you can slide that up, and reveal the first page of applications, and you can then slide that to show the different groups which correspond to the different homescreen page. Favorites, all, home, etc.

Another big thing for OS 6.0 is modal popups with gestures. If you tap and hold (obviously a touchscreen device is required), you’ll get a 9 icon group centered on the screen which is basically a pretty context menu. For instance, you could be composing an email, and instead of pressing Menu + Send, you could tap and hold on the email, see the popup window, and hit the send icon there. Another use would be when emailing photos or videos from your device, just tap and hold on an item there, see the popup, and then just send the item. That way you don’t have to deal with going through the normal menu options which has gotten convoluted with all the various social services/networks available.

The photos application we saw looks quite a bit like the iPhone’s layout, big tiled square photos that appear in thumbnail view with very small borders, that you can flick that list up or down to navigate. Pictures also appeared on screen instantly, not loading one by one by one until you give up. Once you tap a specific photo, you’ll see the picture slide in from the right, sort of like the current animation now when navigating pictures on the BlackBerry. The usual top and bottom UI bars are still here, but if you tap once, just like the iPhone, that view will hide and you’ll have a fullscreen shot of the picture you’re looking at. There was pinch to zoom on the touch screen device we saw (sorry, we can’t comment on the device), but there was absolutely no fluidity when panning around photos. That’s something a lot of manufacturers miss, but, it’s obviously not the end of the world.

Composing an email looks to be a little bit more straight forward. The UI has nice, clean gradients and a very modern web 2.0-feel. Definitely refreshing. There’s also universal search across the system on here… If you haven’t got the point yet, OS 6.0 looks to be a very clean and arguably sexy UI for the BlackBerry platform, let’s just hope there are some under the hood changes as well. Our source says there are many changes we can’t see.

In terms of a release timeframe, we are sure you’ll be pleased as punch to find out that we have been told BlackBerry OS 6.0 will be in market in the June / July timeframe, 100%. I said on Twitter I thought RIM was announcing OS 6.0 at WES (not having heard that at the time), and it looks like I might have been right. RIM needs to knock this one out of the park, and you’ll know we’ll be rooting for them.

Day two of WES 2009 has come and gone and with its passing we have a few bits and pieces of BlackBerry news to report. While a lot of people were tired from a long night of eating free food and drinking free booze as will.i.am performed on stage, the symposium continued on Wednesday though there really wasn’t much in the way of announcements from companies. Nonetheless, we’re here on location and there’s more to report so hit the jump for the skinny.

Because the Bold is old news on AT&T, we didn’t bother to look at it yesterday as we instead focused our attention on the Curve 8900. Turns out that wasn’t the best move on our part because when looking at it today we noticed that it was running OS 5.0.0.93. Now we all know that OS 5.0 was a long time coming, but to this date RIM has been playing it really close to its chest and has declined to comment on it. Funny thing is that it’s proudly on display right under its nose at its own show, albeit loaded on only one of four Bolds the company was showing off. The case was exactly the same with one of the three 8900s which explains how we missed this yesterday.

Also making an appearance was OS 4.7.0.141 on a Verizon 9530 Storm. It was leaked a while ago so a lot of people are familiar with it, but we do have to say that we’re impressed with how much better the Storm performs with the latest OS builds. Anyway, this was a Verizon branded 9530 but it was RIM itself that had it on display. At least in this instance the company was open about the fact that it’s beta and should be coming out very soon.

Since BlackBerry App World is just over a month old, a lot of new apps appeared at WES in addition to some oldies but goodies that have received considerable updates. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the most talked about apps:

Xobni officially announced that it’s taking the company’s outstanding Outlook plug-in mobile for BlackBerry devices. While it’s being extremely secretive as to what Xobni Mobile will include, we do have an idea of what it looks like thanks in part to a leak less than a week ago. When we stopped by to discuss Xobni Mobile we were met with some pretty stiff resistance and merely directed to the email launch mailing list. To make things worse, Xobni Mobile was not even on display leaving interested onlookers with nothing to see but its Outlook plug-in. Hmm.

Storm users take note: Popular multi-service IM app BeeJive now has finally launched a beta version with you in mind. It’s taken quite a lot of time to get to this point, but we caught up with a few people who were using it on their Storms and we have to say that any Storm user who is looking for a great IM solution is going to be absolutely thrilled with the final product.

Poynt, already an amazing location based services app for movies and yellow page listings, will soon be releasing an update that features reverse number look up through white pages as well as restaurant searches. Utilizing both BlackBerry Maps and Google Maps, Poynt is sure to become even more popular in App World when the update goes live in a few weeks time.

WhitePages Mobile for BlackBerry launched Wednesday and offers, among other things, the ability to import numbers from call logs which makes reverse number look ups a breeze. The app even lets you add a search result to your contact book with the click of the trackball. WhitePages Mobile for BlackBerry runs $6.99 for a six month subscription and is currently available in App World.

Vlingo updated its popular voice-powered application to version 3.0 which adds quite a few new features such as the ability to search the web, exchange text messages with other Vlingo users, dial the phone, update both Facebook and Twitter statuses and launch native and third-party apps through speech. Vlingo 3.0 sells for $17.99 in App World.

Now available in App World is WeatherBug, the popular weather application. Featuring GPS-enabled weather alerts, detailed maps with radar and time-lapse animations from US-based weather cameras, WeatherBug is a bargain at the low, low cost of free.

Read – Xobni Mobile
Read – BeeJive Storm beta
Read – Poynt
Read – WhitePages Mobile for BlackBerry
Read – Vlingo 3.0

So the keynote didn’t deliver what most people were counting on (read: anything exciting for the average consumer) but nonetheless there was still quite a bit of neat stuff to see. After the keynote, a few meetings with RIM VPs and Managers and a few cans of Diet Pepsi in the press room, we made our way out onto the Solutions Showcase floor to take a look at what the best and brightest third parties had to offer. Here’s a quick recap of some of the stuff that excites us the most.

RIM launched BES 5.0 yesterday and some pretty nice demo booths were set up to show it off. There are tons of new features in BES 5.0 that are sure to make those who eat, sleep and breath port 3101 squeal with delight. Seeing as the overwhelming majority of people who interact with BES on a daily basis are end-users, we’ll make like Stephen Colbert and get to the nut meat of it by listing the highlights that the average user can expect of BES 5.0:

• Organize email messages that require follow-up with the use of flags, as with Microsoft Outlook
• Easily access to network drives using the remote file explorer directly from BlackBerry smartphones
• Open and forward calendar appointments, including attachments
• Browse folders on the BlackBerry smartphone to view and attach files to email messages
• Use Calendar Meeting Delegation for IBM Lotus Domino, which allows attendees to delegate invitations to another person
• Simplify mailbox folder management by adding, renaming, deleting and moving folders as necessary
• Easily manage personal and public distribution lists
• Listen to WMA files while on the go with extended support for audio file types

As it currently stands, RIM is offering a free trial of BES 5.0 for 60 days which is valid for up to 20 end-users. Everyone else will just have to pony up the dough. And trust us, it’s oh so worth it.

Because we’re suckers for handsets, one of our first stops was with AT&T to take a peek at the Curve 8900 which it recently announced would finally become available. We weren’t able to squeeze a confirmed launch date out of the awesome reps at the booth, but after a bit of chat with a few people we still think the 8900 could go on sale as early as Memorial Day weekend in the region of $150 to $200. But then again, you know how things are and even the best laid plans are subject to change at a moments notice.

Google announced a new BlackBerry service which may to thrill many small and medium-sized business owners. Called Google Apps Connector for BES plug-in, the plug-in allows users’ Google Apps accounts to take advantage of many BES features such as wireless synchronization of email, contacts and calendar entries without the need for Exchange. As with all things in life, work arounds have their drawbacks and currently there are a few — most notably the lack of 2-way calendar synchronization. However, Google Apps Connector for BES is nothing to look down upon as it boasts a wide-range of features which lead us to believe that Google has something special on its hands if there really is a market filled with people who have BES but not Exchange:

Email features

• Push email
• Offline access
• Read/delete sync
• Folder/label sync
• Gmail features in built-in app
  • Spam filter
  • Archive
  • Star message

Calendar features

• 1-way wireless sync: Google Calender > BlackBerry
• View location details, attendee lists, acceptance status
• Support for recurring meetings
• Meeting notifications on device

Contacts features

• Access names, email address, and phone numbers via Global Address List (GAL)
• 2-way wireless sync
• Full support for all fields

Also, Google Apps Connector for BES is currently undergoing beta testing, but it should be available for free in both Premier and Education editions in July of this year with support for up to 250 users.

Quickplay is betting that its new PrimeTime2Go service is going to have mass appeal to TV addicts. While it doesn’t stream TV over cellular networks, users can download their favorite shows from NBC, ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, CW, Discovery, TLC, Nick, Bravo and a bunch more via Wi-Fi and store them on microSD cards for viewing at a later time. PrimeTime2Go is $8 per month and is available in App World.

Cellcrypt is here at WES with their end-to-end real time encrypted voice service. Working not only over Wi-Fi but 2G and 3G cellular networks as well, Cellcrypt provides its 256-bit, FIPS 140-2 standard approved encryption through its own servers, provided both clients have the app loaded on their respective devices. We tried it out and the voice quality was there, but there was a good two seconds of delay. However, Cellcrypt assured us that as it is now working with RIM on drastically improving this drawback before the service makes it to market. It’s definitely something that ultra security-conscience IT departments should take a look at.

Zenprise introduced Mobile Manager, a new plug-in for its Device Manager software and something we have to admit sketches us out. While it’s not the first service of it’s kind, it takes employee monitoring to the next level by spying on each and every single thing a device does. Hello, big brother. Wanna know what modules your employees has installed? Mobile Manager can do it. Wanna know how their battery is fairing? Mobile Manager can do it. Wanna know exactly where they are via GPS and see it on your screen with Google Maps integration? Mobile Manager can do it. Okay, we have to be fair and say that it’s a totally useful product in that it provides a boat load of information that others cannot — such as pinpoint trouble shooting that can be as specific as which cellphone tower caused your brief data outage and tracking down lost devices — but we can’t help but think this sort of power can and will be abused. Anyway, here are the three major points that reps went on about:

Service Manager – Service Manager automatically monitors & troubleshoots mobile performance & availability problems that impact service to your end users.

Best Practice Manager – Best Practice Manager analyzes various configurations to determine whether your configurations match vendor specifications and best practices.

Capacity Manager – Capacity Manager profiles performance of users, applications (BES, Exchange, Active Directory, etc), and the operating system to help you understand capacity and plan for growth, or help with server consolidation.

Each and every time there is a tech convention, something that normally doesn’t warrant coverage ends up getting it anyway. This WES it’s gwabbit, a $9.95 per year app that scans emails for contact information, absorbs the information, sends it off to its server, processes each bit of information into the appropriate fields, shoots it back to your BlackBerry and asks you if you want to add that contact. It’s the sort of app that is perfect for those who drive 50-feet to 7-Eleven instead of walking.

Well, that covers our day 1 pretty well. Be sure to check back with us later as we bring you more coverage from WES 2009.

Read – BES 5.0
Read – Google Apps Connector for BES
Read – PrimeTime2Go
Read – Cellcrypt
Read – Zenprise
Read – gwabbit

P.S. – AT&T, you might want to get a few cell towers on wheels here. We don’t take kindly to 3G crashing, then EDGE crashing and then even GPRS crashing leaving us with nothing but GSM. You’re officially on notice.

While WES might have turned out to be a wash as far as new handsets are concerned, there’s still plenty of awesome new stuff down here in sunny Orlando, FL. New to the scene is LogMeIn Ignition, an app for the Storm which allows Windows and Mac users to access and control their computers on the go. Just like its iPhone app cousin, LogMeIn Ignition has the ability to pan and zoom, a full-QWERTY keyboard and the ability to store login details for multiple computers along with necessary passwords with 256-bit SSL encryption. LogMeIn’s Ignition looks to be a definite winner for those who are looking to access their computers while on the move. Look for it to make its retail debut sometime in the near future, but for now you can sign up to learn more and be notified as soon as you can join the beta program by hitting the read link.

Read

You didn’t think your pals at BGR would leave you hanging did you? Of course we’re at WES this year and of course we’re live blogging the keynote. Well, let’s not get crazy here — as much as we’re sure you’d love to see every second of action-packed keynote speech goodness for two full hours, we’re just going to update this post periodically with highlights from the keynote. So sit back, relax, and know that while you’re chilling in the comfort of your home or office, we’re battling to stay awake on two hours sleep live from Cypress Ballroom. Hit the jump for updates on the action and check back often.

8:29am – Ok people, the fun is about to start!

8:43 am – Ok, the intro is over now and Co-CEO Lazardis has taken the stage.

8:44am – Lazzy is talking about how this wes is important — It is the 8th WES, 25th anniversary of RIM, and 10th anniversary of BlackBerry itself. Woo!

8:46am – Discussing how the BlackBerry platform is easy to manage, how secure it is, how it supports all major email platforms and how it works with all of the major tech development tools.

8:47am – Ok, time for new features of BES 5.0. Yeah, we’ve already covered those pretty well. Wink, wink.

8:48am – New web-based console for wordwide access control, new application library, etc.

8:49am – For end users, BES features better email folder management. Flags for email, remote file access and overall enhanced PIM.

8:51am – Now they’re playing a video that runs over the new features of BES 5.0. It contains a lot of quotes from companies that beta-tested BES 5.0. While this is going on, Mike is just standing there like a statue. It’s slightly unnerving.

8:54am – Discussing the “proven encryption” of BlackBerry and RIM’s buy-out of Certicom.

8:56am – Mike is talking about how BlackBerry users balance their lives with their devices. People feel emotionally connected to their ‘Berrys. Well, anyone who’s ever read the comments section here on BGR can confirm that…

8:58am – RIM seems to be using a lot of images of the 8900 in their presentation which makes sense as its very popular with corporate users due to its low price point and solid battery life.

9:00am – BlackBerry App World time!

9:01am – App World was designed to work with BES allowing admins to push apps to devices and also use white lists and black lists to control which apps users can download.

9:02am – Mike just asked everyone to give devs a round of applause… He was emphatic; how touching.

9:03am – Aaaaaaand AT&T’s 3G network has died.

9:04am – Mike has left the stage and now another video with cheesy rock music has begun.

9:08am – Ok, now that Lazzy is gone we’re gonna slooooow things down and update periodically with news that might not put you to sleep.

9:18am – OMG! OMG! They announced the Magnum! No, no, we’re just kidding folks. Either Lazzy just jumped off the stage and murdered Mike B in cold blood before an audience of thousands, or AT&T and VZW’s data networks just bit it, hard. We’re guessing the latter is the case, so we’ll be back live as soon as things settle down. -Zach

9:30am – Ok, we’re back in action now — at least for the time being. Laurent Philonenko VP, GM Unified Communication Business Unit, Cisco has taken the stage. “We are now oblivious to location because of mobile collaboration.” Deep.

9:42am – The Cisco folk are talking about how services like IM are becoming mainstream in the corporate world and how mobile devices are a major driver in this — thanks in part to integration. Now you can join a conference call, view the sales figures being discussed, and IM your colleagues about the meeting all from your BlackBerry.

9:44am – Oh, Cisco. They’re showing screen caps of a Storm using Wi-Fi.

9:46am – Basically what Cisco is talking is about is allowing the internal corporate network to control everything. If you are on a sales call and your signal dies, the network will keep the call even if your cell signal is dead. If you want to see if there are empty conferece rooms, you can pull up a map on your phone. Walk into the room, your handset detects your entry and asks you if you want to transfer the call you’re on to the conference room telephone. It also lets you control the monitors in the room. “We are in the midst of a major transition” and mobile collaboration, enabled by the enterprise network, will change the way we work.

9:49am – Ok, Cisco bounced and Eric Haseltine, former Director of Research at NSA and ‘CTO’ for the U.S. intelligence community is taking the stage.

9:55am – Okay, kids, we’re getting a biology lesson here and words like “neuroeconomics” are being thrown around willy nilly. Break time.

10:18am – Whoa, what, huh? Ok, ok, we’re awake again. Just put down the Bold to check something on the iPhone. People stared at me like I had leprosy.

10:22am – Ok, show’s over folks. Eric Haseltine left the stage and the audience is being kicked out. No new devices unfortunately but it is what it is. Back with more from WES 2009 soon!

Way back in September we gave the world its first glimpse at the upcoming BlackBerry OS 5.0 running on a Curve 8310, but since that time RIM has continued to keep mum on the subject so we thought that we’d conduct a brief overview of BlackBerry OS 5.0 running on a Bold. So hit the jump and get your OS 5.0 freak on.

If you’re looking for a revolution with this one, we’re afraid that we’re going to have to quash your dreams right now as OS 5.0 is anything but. In fact, the easiest way to describe OS 5.0 is to say that it’s pretty much what you would get if you were to combine the Bold’s OS with that of the Storm. The OS still retains that slick Bold Precision Zen theme, but it has a lot of styling cue’s from the Storm, especially when it comes to drop-down menu options. Despite all of this, we have to say right here and now that we were extremely impressed with how quick and responsive the build that is the focus of today’s sneak-peek really is despite it being a beta that will likely never find its way to the masses. To be completely honest, it totally blew our collective favorite OS 4.6 build for the Bold away in terms of speed. No, it wasn’t without its quirks, but that’s not what we are here to focus on today.

The first notable change takes place on the home screen and has to do with the way that profiles are set, changed and created. Sadly it seems that pressing “F” no longer brings up the profile menu (assuming that Dial From Home Screen is set to “No”), so one has to scroll up on the trackball to select the Profile icon and then click on it. There are now three new options in the pop-up profile menu itself, which allows one to either set ringtones/alerts, set contact alerts or edit profiles. This differs from OS 4.6 in that these three options replaced Advanced making it much simpler to get where one wants to go quickly.

With respect to editing sound profiles themselves, the entire menu system has been reworked to appear as it does on the Storm with collapsible menus. When editing the ring tones themselves, gone are the days of off, mute, low, medium and loud as they have been replaced with a volume scale ranging from silent to 10.

In regards to vibration, one can customize the each alert as they see fit by selecting not only the vibration count (1, 2, 3, 5, 10) but also the vibration length (short, medium, long) as well. We suppose this is a nice added feature but not too many people are going to get all that crazy with it, we imagine.

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Moving on to BlackBerry Messenger, possibly the single greatest thing that the BlackBerry has going for it (it’s so true), nothing groundbreaking has been added and nothing has been taken away, but the entire app has a much more polished look to it.

The actual conversation window is now more stylized and features a graphic for emoticons that can be selected by scrolling to the right of the text entry box. We have to be honest when we say we’re not too sure why this is the case considering that pretty much everyone familiar with BBM lives and dies by pressing the symbol key and hitting a key that corresponds to each individual emoticon, but we guess that with so many people joining the BlackBerry user-base each day RIM wants to make things a bit easier. That, and we have to admit that the new method is a hell of a lot more eye catching.

Let’s face it — if RIM really wants to win over a bunch of consumers in one fell swoop, it has to fix the browser because it just isn’t happening. Regrettably, apart from some stylization and the ability to move around a page while its loading without temporarily freezing the device, it doesn’t seem that the browser functions any differently from what the Bold is currently capable of doing with OS 4.6. Granted we are running a beta version of OS 5.0 and things will be improved when this software is officially launched (so we hope, anyway). We experienced major errors that prohibited the loading of many websites we attempted to visit, but when we did get through we couldn’t help but notice that the browser still isn’t anywhere near where we would like it to be.

Some might be pleased to know that support for Google Gears has been added, but we don’t think that really matters until the browser is a little more… capable.

Seeing as we just mentioned consumers want for robust mobile browsers, it’s fitting that we check in and see what’s up with the Media app. Truth be told, nothing is really new here. The only change that most people will notice moving from OS 4.6 to OS 5.0 is, again, a slight styling change and the awesome new look at the status of media card memory (if applicable), system memory and device memory. It’s pretty neat how it categorizes file types and lists their collective sizes, but at this point the feature is not accurate as it does not account for the space used up by the OS itself. It also seemed to grossly miscalculate the amount of files on our devices. Oh, we almost forgot… When viewing pictures one can finally cycle through photos by scrolling left to right, putting this N and P nonsense to an end at last.

Speaking of files, Files still appears to be the only new app included with OS 5.0 and it looks like it will add network share access to BES users, something that we at BGR are quite excited about.

Well, that does it for our brief summary of OS 5.0 for the BlackBerry Bold. We hope you enjoyed it and are all fired up for it to become official next month at WES 2009. By then, of course, we hope a few surprises are thrown in and for the sake of BlackBerry users’ sanity, we really hope the browser is beefed up. Please.

From May 5 to 7 in Orlando Florida, RIM will will be hosting Wireless Enterprise Symposium or WES. While BGR will be there on the floor for the entire convention bringing you the latest BlackBerry news as it happens, we thought we’d give you all a little bit of a taste of what we know/believe is to come.

First off, expect to see the 8900 Curve make an appearance courtesy AT&T. As many people on AT&T who are running unlocked 8900s by now already know, the official AT&T service books have been pushed out which means that AT&T is doing the final prep work for launch. More notable and more exciting will be the official acknowledgment of the BlackBerry 9630 codenamed Niagara.

As you know from our feature review of the device, the BlackBerry 9630 blends the size and styling of the 8900 Curve and Storm with the heavenly keypad from the Bold all the while features a gorgeous 480×360 display, 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, OS 4.7.1 and last but not least the lovable combination of dual-band 1xRTT/EV-DO from the CDMA side, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and the single and lonely 2100MHz band of UMTS/HSDPA from the GSM side. Happy, you boys and girls of red?

As far as a release date goes, we’ve heard Canadian CDMA carrier/s will get it as early as late May, early June and Verizon would be launching around the June/July timeframe. We were told a while back RIM was utterly disappointed with the Bold fiasco (announcing in May and shipping in 2012 on AT&T) but we’re guessing they haven’t learned their lesson yet.

BES 5.0 also looks to be a lock as the “gold code” is now being tested which means that RIM has gotten to the point where its just about ready for release to those whose lives revolve around port 3101. And keeping with the number 5.0, there is some talk that RIM is finally going to be up front about the existence of OS 5.0 despite the fact that we’ve been tinkering with it for longer than the Bold has been around with AT&T.

Now this next two are a bit sketchy, but a long time ago we told you that RIM wasn’t going to be embarrassed again by releasing a device like the Bold running on the outgoing 3G technology at a time when everyone in the World is holding their breath in anticipation of LTE. So with that in mind, we’ve been told that there is a possibility that RIM might take the wraps off of their work with an LTE device, or better yet show one off on stage or behind glass enclosures. We can’t say for sure this is going to happen, but we are comforted by the fact that RIM has indeed already begun trials of its LTE device. As for the second iffy rumor, it’s bound to happen at some point in time — though not necessarily at WES — so we’re just throwing it in here as a bonus. Apparently RIM is going to be releasing a device or two with processors that top off at 1GHz sometime within the next 9-12 months. Again, don’t hold us to this, but the whispers are getting louder and louder.

iWhat?