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Hot on the heels of the BlackBerry Bold comes the news that the company behind it is to start up its own venture capital firm. The BlackBerry Partners Fund is a bunk up between RIM and Thomson Reuters, and has earmarked $150 million for mobile applications and services for mobile platforms including BlackBerry. Full press release after the jump.
RIM, RBC and Thomson Reuters to Anchor a $150 Million BlackBerry Partners Fund Focused on Investing in Mobile Applications and Services[PR Newswire]New fund to mark "mobile" as the new frontier
TORONTO, May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Research In Motion (RIM) (TSX:
RIM; NASDAQ: RIMM), RBC (RY: TSX; RY: NYSE) and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI;
TSX: TRI; LSE: TRIL; NASDAQ: TRIN), today announced plans to launch the
BlackBerry(R) Partners Fund, a US$150 million venture capital fund, to
invest in mobile applications and services for the BlackBerry(R) platform
and other mobile platforms. The Fund is to be co-managed by JLA Ventures
and RBC Venture Partners.Agnostic to both stage and balance sheet, the BlackBerry Partners Fund
will not restrict the development of mobile applications and services to
any single mobile platform or any specific industry segment. The Fund will
be designed to advance the industry by fostering development and driving
the entrepreneurial spirit to create the most innovative mobile offerings
for customers."The mobile world has evolved well beyond phone calls and simple
messaging to require more empowering and liberating solutions that connect
people to everything that matters most to them, wherever and whenever they
want," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO, Research In Motion. "RIM, RBC and
Thomson Reuters share the common belief that mobile applications and
services will propel the industry forward and the BlackBerry Partners Fund
is being formed to help fuel innovation and activity in the mobile
ecosystem.""Thomson Reuters is committed to supporting the development of next
generation mobile applications that will provide our professional and
business customers with anywhere, anytime capabilities," said Devin Wenig,
Chief Executive Officer, Markets Division of Thomson Reuters. "The ability
to make business critical decisions with intelligent information available
on mobile devices will give our customers a clear competitive advantage.""The BlackBerry Partners Fund will focus on evaluating companies in all
regions of the world and investing in the long term success of those that
demonstrate market leadership and unique differentiation," said John
Albright, Managing Partner of JLA Ventures, who will also assume the role
of Co-Managing Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund. "Whether it's
access to corporate data or the latest craze in mobile entertainment, we
want to fund companies that are forerunners in driving adoption and further
enriching the mobile experience.""The BlackBerry Partners Fund will be a catalyst for the development of
next generation mobile applications and services," said Kevin Talbot, RBC
Vice President and Managing Director of RBC Venture Partners, who will also
assume the role of Co-Managing Partner of the BlackBerry Partners Fund.
"The BlackBerry Partners Fund will focus exclusively on mobile applications
and services and our close alliance with RIM will bring unparalleled access
and value to our portfolio companies."About BlackBerry Partners Fund
The BlackBerry Partners Fund is a $150 million venture capital fund
being formed to focus on applications and services for the BlackBerry
platform and other mobile platforms including mobile commerce (payments,
advertising, retailing and banking), vertical and horizontal enterprise
applications, communications, social networking, location-based
applications and services (navigation and mapping), media and
entertainment, and lifestyle and personal productivity applications. The
Fund will consider all stages of development and is to be co-managed by JLA
Ventures and RBC Venture Partners. To sign up to receive further
information visit: http://www.blackberrypartnersfund.com.
The folks who brought us simple Wi-Fi for digital cameras add locations, modify pricing: Eye-Fi developed a supremely simple 2 GB Secure Digital card that can work with any digital camera and transfer photos over known Wi-Fi networks with no effort. Now they've split their original $99 product offering into three items differentiated by features: Eye-Fi Explore, with Wi-Fi-based geotagging ($129); Eye-Fi Share, for uploading to photo-sharing systems ($99); and Eye-Fi Home, which is a cable-replacement service ($79). The Eye-Fi Explore will be available starting 9-June-2008.
The Eye-Fi Explore product relies on Skyhook Wireless's system of analyzing the signal strength of nearby Wi-Fi networks to extrapolate latitude and longitude. Eye-Fi ties that into their system to stamp images with locations. This deal also ties into Wayport's domestic network of 10,000 hotspots, most of which are McDonald's outlets, allowing free uploading via those systems. The purchase price covers one year of hotspot service. All three products work with Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, and Windows XP/Vista.
Because Skyhook needs a live Web connection to look up the Wi-Fi environment, Eye-Fi can store the Wi-Fi snapshot when the picture is taken, and manage inserting the appropriate photo metadata (EXIF format) at upload for Flickr and other services that support geotagging.
Geotagging is a very popular idea, something that I'm quite taken with because it pairs the act of taking a photograph with the location at which the picture is taken, making a digital photograph seem a little less untied to reality. But until now, it's been generally quite involved to match a picture with coordinates. A handful of specialized cameras embed GPS chips, and there's software to facilitate other methods, but the cost and battery drain of GPS chips have apparently so far kept it from being a widely deployed feature, while the wonkiness of alternatives doesn't appeal to mainstream users.
Sony once sold this wacky GPS companion (which I just found out isn't available in either released model) that would track your location over time, and use that information to geotag images via a special software program that let you pair its stream of data with your photographs.
Eye-Fi and Skyhook are doing something almost the same, since the camera isn't capturing the GPS data, and the Eye-Fi isn't applying the information live, much of the time. But it's eminently more usable than the Sony system, because the Eye-Fi handles the assembly seamlessly for you.
Now there's just one thing to worry about. Think about this: McDonald's are everywhere, and nearly all of the U.S. locations have Wi-Fi. The Eye-Fi uploads whenever it can, as long as the camera is turned on. You're geotagging images without any effort. Okay, got it? So...you call in sick to work, and run off to take some photos. Your boss, using RSS to subscribe to your Flickr feed, not only sees your pictures as you wander the town, unknowningly promiscuously uploading them via quick-serve restaurants' networks, but also knows precisely where you are.
This makes me suggest that you might set your Flickr upload preferences to keep images private and your geotagging preferences the same. You can then expose the images you want for public consumption. The Panoptican is...us!
