RIM makes peace with United Arab Emirate

BlackBerry-maker RIM, has given indications that it’s strategizing on a wide-ranging alliance with regulators and mobile operators in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) to promote its services to government, enterprises and academic institutions in the region.

The new agreement appears to signal the start of a new chapter for RIM in the market after local regulators had earlier threatened to ban certain BlackBerry services on security grounds.

ITRealms Online gathered that there was no mention of these recent problems in an upbeat joint statement issued by RIM, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE and local operators including Etisalat and Du on Monday.

This suggests the new deal as “a long-term commitment to address the growing market opportunities for smartphones, tablets and services that serve the needs of businesses and citizens in the Middle East,” ITRealms Online gathered.

The partnership is also committed to bringing more localised content and applications to the BlackBerry platform in the region.

While RIM announced it’s readiness to launch BlackBerry App World; the official on-device app store for BlackBerry smartphones in the UAE, as well as its development platform, BlackBerry WebWorks, which aims to support local application development.

Co- Chief executive officer, RIM, Mr. Jim Balsillie, said the the enormous popularity of BlackBerry Messenger in the Middle East demonstrates the potential for new apps and services in the region and this collaboration will support the local developer community to create additional rich and locally relevant apps for both BlackBerry smartphones and the new BlackBerry PlayBook.

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