BlackBerryOS Interviews Vivek Bhardwaj, Head Of Software Portfolio At RIM

BlackBerryOS.com Member Inspired Questions:

Final Concluding Question:







Be sure to leave us your thoughts on the interview and anything that Vivek had to say in the comments below!

Great things continue on for the BlackBerryOS community and TeamBlackBerry, as we get a chance to interview Vivek Bhardwaj, RIM's Head of Software Portfolio, and ask him a myriad of questions pertaining to various hot topics about BlackBerry 10 and such. Now if you don't know, Vivek is not only the gentleman to give the first BlackBerry 10 keyboard demo at the BB World 2012 keynote, he is also the go-to-man for the latest software in development at RIM. He is the guy who gets to play with it first! While I'm sure many of us BB addicts have plenty of envy on this, Vivek is truly a great guy and fits his post at RIM quite nicely. He even had the patience to carry on the interview past the allotted time given to us, and so we got the privilege to hear more detail within his answers to our questions.The interview is over 30 minutes long so I decided to compose the entire audio into a Youtube video for ease of viewing and allow you to pick out different parts of the video for your own ease of access for the questions that interest you the most. Below is a list of questions that we asked Vivek, a brief description of his answers, and the relative links to their place in the video interview where you can listen to his full answers for that question.So, grab a cup of coffee, kick your feet back, and listen to the full video below. Or, you can skip to each question individually by following the links below within each response:Being the Head of Software Portfolio for RIM, you are at the front lines on how BlackBerry 10 is coming along. How much farther has BlackBerry 10 progressed from when we saw you at BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando, till now?There is a lot of talk about the ecosystem being integrated as oppossed to BlackBerry 10 just being a phone. How would you describe the BlackBerry 10 ecosystem?We currently are sitting at a public OS 2.0 for the PlayBook, will the OS progression of the PlayBook leading up to BlackBerry 10 be incremental, or will we see one major update around the same time the first BlackBerry 10 phones launch in January of 2013?The ability to sideload apps has been a great way to utilize the openness of the PlayBook OS for developers. Will the ability to sideload apps continue on with BlackBerry 10 OS?We all know the virtual keyboard is awesome. Aside from that, what do you think consumers will be most excited about for the BlackBerry 10 experience?How is RIM planning to keep BlackBerry users in the emerging markets satisfied with their BlackBerry 7 devices? In other words, what kinds of updates can we expect for BlackBerry 7 that can continue to add value to these devices?Is RIM planning to bring that UI customization we have grown to know througout the history of BlackBerry OS into the BlackBerry 10 platform? - More specifically, cosmetic type customizations, such as themes, fonts, ect?What can users expect to see as far as native apps on the PlayBook platform before BlackBerry 10 OS launches? For example, BBM, BlackBery Protect, BBM Music, Twitter for BlackBerry client, and so forth.Why have we yet to see a native BBM app on the PlayBook? Does it have to do with integration of multiple PINS toward one user account? What is the main reason behind this?What metric is RIM using to ensure that BlackBerry 10 is going to be a success?In BlackBerry 10, what three things stand out the most against the competition?Any final thoughts that you would like to leave to those mobile users out there who are sort of on the fence right now about RIM and BlackBerry 10?