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Once upon a time, the BlackBerry community was almost exclusively populated by high flying executives and business men who cared more about receiving their emails as and when they came in, where ever they were in the world, over how aesthetically challenged their mobile devices actually looked.
Email was the Alpha and the Omega of BlackBerry, and because BlackBerry – both the device and the service – had such an imba way of dealing with push services, the thought of using other push enabled devices (most of which were touch screen PDA phones at the time) was inconceivable.

These days however, the entire BlackBerry landscape has changed. Email isn’t the only thing that drives BlackBerry’s push service any more, and instead of seeing it used by briefcase carrying men dressed in suits, you’ll now see it in the hands of pimply faced teens and hardened party goers.

So what gives?

Hit the jump to find out more.

“BlackBerry has traditionally been strong as an enterprise device and service, but in Malaysia, people are now calling it a great social media tool!”
Lowyat.NET recently sat down for a quick chat with Gregory Wade, the Managing Director of Research In Motion (RIM) SEA, who explained that the North American BlackBerry market is watching the South East Asia region very closely and is keen to learn how countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have transformed the BlackBerry from being a device strictly for enterprises into a cool social media enabler that everybody now wants a piece of.
“The main difference between social media usage here and in North America is the proximity of the relationships. People in North America prefer a long proximity relationship and are happy to limit the communications to social media channels only, whereas people in Asia actually want to meet you in person.”
Mr. Wade goes on to emphasize that the physical size of North America as compared to Thailand or Malaysia also plays a part in shaping this behavior, since traveling between states to physically meet someone in North America could take several days’ worth of traveling time to accomplish.
He also added that the introduction of more social media Super Apps – applications that integrate fully with the BlackBerry OS – was also an integral part in the rise of the BlackBerry, since these Super apps provided users with one touch access to many of the BlackBerry’s functions.

When asked how RIM intends on further cashing on this new niche, Gregory Wade went on to emphasize that their working relationship with the countries telcos were an integral part of their growth.
“In the SEA region, we extended our look beyond the logical market (enterprise market) and found good demand from the consumer market. Since BlackBerry isn’t just a device (but also a service), we worked closely with carriers to satisfy our customer’s needs.”
Besides acting as a channel of sales for RIM’s catalogue of devices, telcos such as Maxis, DiGi and Celcom also provide subscriptions to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), a service that gives BlackBerry device users access to push services for not only email, but also various popular social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter.
RIM has also been working closely with telcos to devise better promotional drives such as targeted roadshows, as well as special pricing schemes in order to attract more customers. The introduction of entry level models such as the Curve 8250 has also helped to expand the subscriber base in the SEA region thanks to its extremely competitive retail price.

But sales of their devices and subscriptions to their services aren’t the only things that RIM is looking to SEA for, since an increase in BlackBerry users automatically equates to an increase in demand for applications.
RIM is looking to run a series of training seminars on application development for the BlackBerry platform this year in hopes of increasing the number of localized applications on BlackBerry App World, so if you’re an aspiring developer, be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

Mr. Wade also talked a little about the upcoming BlackBerry OS 6, and told us that the refined interface and enhanced customizability would definitely push the BlackBerry to the next level.  When asked if the introduction of OS 6 would hinder the number of new applications on App World, Gregory ensured us that RIM was looking to “maintain a seamless transition for developers to migrate to OS 6”.
To find out more about the upcoming OS 6 or about RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry devices, hit up the official Research In Motion website at http://www.blackberry.com