RIM To Start “BlackBerry 10 Ready Program”, To Give Enterprises Free BlackBerry 10 Device

RIM announced their “BlackBerry 10 Ready Program” this morning, an incentive for their enterprise customers to “prepare their environments” for the upcoming BB10 OS. RIM will be rolling out various offerings in a phased approach and will include four components: BlackBerry 10 Ready Offer, BlackBerry 10 Ready Webcast Series, BlackBerry Enterprise Server License Trade Up, and the BlackBerry 10 Readiness Services. The BlackBerry 10 Ready Offer and BlackBerry 10 Ready Webcast Series are both available today, while the other two will go live before RIM fully unveils BB10 on January 30th.

[quote]We remain committed to our enterprise customers and want to provide them with a head start on understanding the power of BlackBerry 10 and preparing their existing environments for the new mobile computing platform,” said Bryan Lee, Senior Director, Enterprise at RIM. “The BlackBerry 10 Ready Program gives customers access to a variety of services, information, tools, and special offers to help ease their transition to BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.”[/quote]

The webcast series is simple, but incredibly important. This will be the educational portion and RIM will hold weekly webcasts to share info and answer questions about the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS, plus demonstrate how enterprise customers can easily integrate BB10 when it launches.

Specifics of the “BlackBerry 10 Ready Offer” reveals that RIM will be giving out a free BB10 smartphone, but is limited to one per company and currently available to those in Canada and the United States. RIM states that more countries will follow. 

BlackBerry customers with BlackBerry Technical Support at the Advantage level or higher are eligible to receive a free BlackBerry 10 smartphone. Customers will need to install and run BlackBerry Mobile Fusion (which will be succeeded by BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10), and successfully complete an exclusive online learning course to qualify. Upon the launch of BlackBerry 10, the organization will receive a free BlackBerry 10 smartphone. 

RIM has 80 million BlackBerry customers and 60 million BlackBerry Messenger users. The big unveiling of BlackBerry 10 is happening on January 30th, 2013 .

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Research In Motion (RIM) (RIMM)(RIM.TO) today announced the BlackBerry 10 Ready Program. The program is designed to address the needs of BlackBerry enterprise customers as they prepare their environments for the launch of BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10, RIM”s powerful new multiplatform enterprise mobility management solution. The program will be introduced in a phased approach with four components. Two of the components – The BlackBerry 10 Ready Offer and the BlackBerry 10 Ready Webcast Series – are available today. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server License Trade Up and BlackBerry 10 Readiness Services components will be available ahead of the global BlackBerry 10 launch on January 30, 2013.

“We remain committed to our enterprise customers and want to provide them with a head start on understanding the power of BlackBerry 10 and preparing their existing environments for the new mobile computing platform,” said Bryan Lee, Senior Director, Enterprise at RIM. “The BlackBerry 10 Ready Program gives customers access to a variety of services, information, tools, and special offers to help ease their transition to BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.”

BlackBerry 10 Ready Offer

BlackBerry customers with BlackBerry Technical Support at the Advantage level or higher are eligible to receive a free BlackBerry 10 smartphone.* Customers will need to install and run BlackBerry® Mobile Fusion (which will be succeeded by BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10), and successfully complete an exclusive online learning course to qualify. Upon the launch of BlackBerry 10, the organization will receive a free BlackBerry 10 smartphone. 

BlackBerry 10 Webcast Series

The weekly BlackBerry 10 webcast series is designed to share information, answer questions about RIM”s enterprise product portfolio, and prepare enterprise customers with the tools they need ahead of launch. The webcasts will be supported in multiple languages.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server License Trade Up

RIM will be offering customers who purchase BlackBerry 10 smartphones the ability to trade up their existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server licenses on a one for one basis for free, until December 31, 2013.** The license trade up offer will allow customers to secure and manage their BlackBerry 10 smartphones with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10. Customers will be able to access an online tool for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server License Trade Up in January 2013.

BlackBerry 10 Readiness Services

This set of services will provide customers with a smooth migration path to BlackBerry 10. Change management and planning migration tools, and application development services will be available in January 2013. For more details customers can email [email protected].

For more information about the BlackBerry 10 Ready Program please visitwww.blackberry.com/blackberry10ready.

To register for the BlackBerry 10 Webcast Series, and to get a complete list of dates and times, please visit www.blackberry.com/blackberry10webcasts.

* Offer available while supplies last. Limit one (1) device per company. Offer currently only available for customers in North America. (Additional countries are expected to follow with similar offers.) Offer deadline: February 28, 2013. For complete details see Terms and Conditions:http://www.blackberry.com/business/blackberry-10-ready/free-blackberry-10-device/terms-and-conditions.html. 

** Offer applies to BlackBerry Enterprise Server licenses only; not applicable for BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express licenses. Additional Terms and Conditions apply. 

About Research In Motion

Research In Motion (RIM), a global leader in wireless innovation, revolutionized the mobile industry with the introduction of the BlackBerry® solution in 1999. Today, BlackBerry products and services are used by millions of customers around the world to stay connected to the people and content that matter most throughout their day. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, RIM operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. RIM is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (RIMM) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (RIM.TO). For more information, visit www.rim.com or www.blackberry.com.

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