Digicel to roll out Blackberry Z10 on Wednesday

Digicel has announced it will be launching the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone on Wednesday across the Caribbean. “The new BlackBerry Z10 is the first smartphone to launch with the re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented BlackBerry 10 platform, offering customers a powerful and unique new mobile computing experience,” the telecommunications company said in a media release yesterday.

“The BlackBerry Z10 is the fastest and most advanced BlackBerry smartphone yet, and offers a smarter experience that continuously adapts to a customer’s needs.” Digicel group commercial director Brian Finn, said: “We are very excited to be bringing the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone to Digicel customers across the Caribbean. The BlackBerry 10 powered solutions on Digicel offer a great new mobile computing experience—which is great news for our style-savvy customers who use BlackBerry smartphones for their business and lifestyle needs. 

“Our customers are looking for cutting-edge technologies and the latest apps wrapped up in the distinctive BlackBerry style. The new BlackBerry Z10 fits the bill and we’re expecting a great response when it launches.” Bmobile said in a statement it is “excited” to introduce the BlackBerry Z10 into the T&T market in the near future since many BlackBerry customers are eager to upgrade to the new platform which promises to offer an enhanced experience.

Carlo Chiarello, EVP, Global Smartphone Business at RIMt said: “The BlackBerry Z10 smartphone delivers a powerful new platform for BlackBerry customers. Combined with bmobile's 4G network and service plans, BlackBerry Z10 customers will be delighted with a re-invented communication experience, seamless multitasking, easy access to multiple social networks, and the peace of mind that BlackBerry security gives them.”

In one of the biggest launches in the mobile handset industry, the Canadian mobile phone company Research In Motion (RIM) on Wednesday launched the much-awaited BlackBerry 10 handset at an event in New York. It also rebranded the company to BlackBerry after its handsets. BlackBerry’s chief executive officer Thorsten Heins was optimistic that the rebranded company would survive in a highly competitive market and would do well in the future, although it has lost market share over the last few years against Apple’s I phone and Android phones with better operating systems.

The BlackBerry 10 uses the operating system QNX, which BlackBerry acquired two years ago. It's the first of the phones to use the BlackBerry 10 operating system, an attempt to bring the once-pioneering BlackBerry in line with the iPhone and Android devices. 

The Z10 will have only a touch-screen keyboard. BlackBerry fans wanting a physical keyboard will have to wait at least a month for the BlackBerry Q10. "I believe this will truly transform mobile communication to mobile computing. It is unlike anything you have seen before," Heins said at the launch in New York.

RIM opened down ten per cent in New York Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, a day after it launched the first two BlackBerrys as investors reacted with disappointment to news that the first of the devices will not be available in the crucial US market until mid March.