LinkedIn for BlackBerry – Stay Mobile, Be Connected!

That’s right! The most anticipated social application has finally come to its rightful home; on BlackBerry! Even though its been in the works, initially by LinkedIn internal developers, for almost a year – let me just say its worth the wait. This is a collaboration and between LinkedIn and RIM specifically for the BlackBerry clientele.

If any social app that can stand the test of time and was fully meant to bridge the gap between the personal cloud existence & the professional inter/outer office communication for the masses its LinkedIn.

LinkedIn BB Logo

Without further waiting for those of you that are jonesing get it here: LinkedIn for BlackBerry. To email yourself the LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Download

This is version release 1.0.0. Let get right into it shall we?! First off when you download the application you’ll get prompted for the installation with the options to set modified permissions.

LinkedIn Permissions_1

LinkedIn Permissions_2

Then after complete installation it’ll ask you to reboot your BlackBerry “Reboot Now” or “Reboot Later” on BlackBerry there is the choice.

Some issues you’ll find when trying to logon to the LinkedIn application is that its set to use WAP first. Even if you disable Auto to uncheck this and have a WiFi connection it doesn’t allow you to logon successfully – I’ve countless times today have logged onto a WinXP via FireFox/Internet Explorer 6/7/8, and on Mac Snow Leopard via Safari and STILL cannot logon on my BlackBerry. Your mileage may vary but this is the very FIRST issue LinkedIn developers need to fix and FAST!

Secondly, they need to have this deployed on AppWorld and FAST! The benefits is for users to archive the download to be re-installed should a replacement or hardware upgrade occurs – no longer the need to backup url for ota downloads.

Third is this app is begging for refinement – should a user forget their password; eliminate the NEED to open the browser on their computer or on the handheld (HH) to logon to the site, change the password, get an email sent to them, then authenticate on the site and then connect, and then enter it on the app. 3 simple steps, integrate Forgot Password in the app. Then have it prompt the link directly authenticate and send the email directly to the integrated email on the HH and that is clicked via a link which loads the app. Once loaded and logged in a specific Menu > Options to change password where the temp pw is NOT required.

Also there NEEDS to be a way to EDIT your profile directly from this app and correctly update (with the standard font of course – possible integrate with spell checking using the BB API for this).

Thanks for stopping by, and stay tuned for an update.

Novell GroupWise catches the WAVE – Google Wave

Its with great surprise and shock that I post about this. A once great enterprise in the field of communication & messaging, which didn’t quite evolve to collaboration until recently is returning with a vengeance.

Novell Suse Linux

RIM has continued to support Novell GroupWise via BES over all previous versions of BES – yet I cannot find specific mention of BES 5.0 supporting GroupWise. This isn’t really a surprise since Novell is primarily a Linux house – mainly servers/mainframes built on Suse Linux (which is HUGE in Germany I might add). The previous meat of Novell was either NetWare [multi-platform network operating system (NOS), Novell NetWare] & GroupWise Server.

Novell NetWare Revisor

Of note back in 1993 Novell Inc owned rights to the Unix operating system with the purchase of the company bought Unix System Laboratories from AT&T. Novell in 1995 assigned portions of their Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation, WordPerfect and Quattro Pro were sold together to Corel in 1996. DR was also sold to Caldera Systems in 1996. To further give you the scope of just how powerful Novell was, the largest Nuclear PowerPlant corporation in the United States had run fully on Novel NetWare up until 2007; and possibly still is. But enough about that.

Now back to why this post matters, or may matter in the future for you BlackBerry users and those of you just curious about the collaboration industry.

Novell Pulse

Novell recently announced a new initiative: Pulse! This will be based on Google’s WAVE (HTML5 based, cloud collaborative communications software/service). This is a LOT bigger than just having that “wave” in its inception.

1. This will allow Novell to effectively act as a cloud service for only applications; not just to existing customers but also to Government and large corporations willing to save their costs without huge overhead, administrative, and IT expense or headache’s.
2. This, could allow Novell to compete not only against Microsoft, or IBM’s Domino/Notes/etc services/software, but also against Google’s on fledgeling service to large states such as California. Its possible this is already been done with Google’s brand fronting the operation. Of note … Eric Schmidt was CEO of Novell back in 1997 so don’t think this is a coincidence.

I’m more interested in how RIM will consider supporting such a service (if it decides to) and will the support just be on Windows based computing or will it include the ever growing Mac OS X & Linux platforms. The future of computing is slowly becoming cloud based … something I loathe; but not entirely. I can see us getting closure to a society that uses netbooks/laptops, and netbooks that are cloud OS based with applications and documents also cloud based and easily shared with our smartphone of choice – with conversions done in the cloud; wait RIM already has done this with Word/PPT/Excel/PDF documents since BIS 2.1. Those of you old enough to remember watching Superman as little tots or read the comics of Superman that featured Brainiac or Brain-Interactive Construct will squint to see the similarities of a possible Cloud Based OS & Application future – without the paranoia of course.

RIM BIS 3.0 Update – March 28th 2AM EDT – 6Am EDT

As reported on other blogs, RIM has scheduled network maintenance by Research In Motion (RIM) affecting BIS customers between 0100 CT / 0200 EDT on March 28th and 0500 CT / 0600 EDT on March 28th. All BIS users will be down for just a short period of time … a scheduled upgrade of bliss!

LinkedIn for BlackBerry – Leaked & Stopped

Looks like the ongoing, and fustrated community members that have been discussing LinkedIn for BlackBerry on LinkedIn’s own discussion boards found a leaked version of LinkedIn for BlackBerry on http://www.bb4li.com.

While trying to move all my files from my existing Windows XP PC to my new MacBook Aluminum Unibody (and from my ancient TiBook), I figured I’d take a break and see what emails I got this morning.

5 along in less than 10mins from the LinkedIn discussion boards and I missed out.

SureType is NOT Dead!

All the blogs are speculating that the BlackBerry Pearl 9100, a candybar form factor will hold the rumored, or leaked qwerty keypad shown below.

Only recently has CrackBerry site began to ponder if the BlackBerry Pearl Flip would use such a keyboard.

To be honest I don’t think SureType is dead. RIM would not invest so many hours & money in research in SureType only to get rid of it; especially in how successful it is for 1-handed typing.

Personally the recent prototype hardware leak from RIM, the slider BlackBerry may benefit from the above keyboard layout type. This way the top-end of the slider is all glass, and is seamless in its design – possibly SurePress enabled for non sliding layout. Having a physical full qwerty keypad on such a device is beneficial when full screen real-estate is necessary.

SureType is VERY successful and has been on 3 main type of BlackBerry models; and their segments. It has greater chances of success appealing to those that love the traditional phone slim design and have not used the full qwerty BB devices. To be honest I miss my 8100 Pearl solely for that reason. Although I have played and been troubleshooting BlackBerry devices before the original Pearl was released, it was my first purchased BlackBerry.