This week’s Blackberry Developers Conference has seen an unprecedented whirlwind of activity from Research In Motion. In addition to launching 4 new services for hungry developers to dig into, they’ve also upped the bar by launching a new iPad challenging tablet device, with an interesting focus on multimedia and gaming – a sign of things to come from RIM? Let’s look at the details.

Services

• WebWorks Development Platform. This is most probably the most attractive offering for developers. The new WebWorks dev platform is a tool that will allow developers a quick and relatively pain free entry into the BlackBerry app party. Featuring a highly integrated platform for HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript codes, the offering funnels directly into native BlackBerry OS functions, as well as a neat packaging system the ports them into full fledged BlackBerry apps.

• BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform. Think of this offering as a natural extension to the WebWorks package. The Messenger Social Platform allows developers to tap into BlackBerry’s system of sending and receiving files, user profiles, messages, and invitations – something that RIM has historically kept all to themselves. If any of these services sound remotely familiar to some other services widely found in mobile devices that focus on social interaction, particularly through gaming…read on.

• BlackBerry Advertising Service. Now that RIM has opened the doors to developers, it’s time to monetize. First up – the new advertising service. Similar to Google’s AdMob and Apple’s Quattro, the BlackBerry Advertising Service offers two flavors – “simple” and “rich media” ads that will be served up via “only three lines of code.” RIM says revenues will amount to a 60/40 developer/RIM split.

• BlackBerry Payment Service SDK. This is the one that really got me excited about all the new offerings. The first two are things that BlackBerry should have done 2 years ago. The Advertising service, ok, it might take a while to get up and running, but the new Payment Service, which allows for in-app payments via credit card, PayPal and/or carrier billing could, should, and will be a major boost for RIM. Not only will they be pulling in additional revenues, but by offering this option, the entire BlackBerry range of products just became a whole lot more attractive to an entire pool of talented developers.

Hardware

If you’ve been paying attention to what’s what in Tech today, there’s one major current in play – everyone’s gotta have a tablet. And it’s not that Apple is the only game in town, it’s just that Apple is the game that everyone is talking about – and has.
Not to be cut out of the party, Research In Motion presented their own offering earlier this week with the announcement of the PlayBook. An interesting choice of words for sure, especially coming from a firm that’s spent years and years focusing on big business customers.

RIM’s PlayBook is operating on the newly dubbed BlackBerry Tablet OS (powered by recently acquired QNX), and offers full OpenGL, POSIX support, and handles HTML5 flawlessly. Note the HTML5 functionality also mentioned above in the WebWorks offering? Ah yes…the image is becoming clearer now…

And now for the Apple killer – the RIM PlayBook will handle Flash content, as well as Adobe AIR apps – both features that are destined to make games developers’ lives a whole lot easier.

Speaking of games developers, the PlayBook features 1080p video, as well as an HDMI output and microUSB jack. For connectivity, RIM’s 7” dual-core 1GHz CPU device sports 802.11a/b/g/n wifi, as well as Bluetooth 2.1. RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis explained during the presentation that the PlayBook is, “an incredible gaming platform for publishers and players.”

Again, the trend o’ the day is for each and every tech manufacturer out there to put out their own version of a tablet computer. Dell’s not happy with one, but rather is bringing “a whole slew” of new devices to market in 3”, 4”, 7”, and 10” flavors. It was only a matter of time until RIM got on board, but what’s interesting to note is that over the course of their history, BlackBerry has never been the default thought when it comes to mobile gaming. Mobile enterprising – sure, but gaming? Not so much. When even the Brooks Brothers suits are coming over to the gaming side of the fence, there’s a clear deletion of the land in the sand happening as we speak.