With just over a month to go until the first ever BlackBerry Developer Conference, I thought it was a good time to have a quick look at the BlackBerry Developers' State of the Union and how it's about to undergo a significant change in October.

The BlackBerry platform has always been an extremely powerful platform for developers - I'm often surprised how hard developers on other mobile platforms find tasks such as peer-to-peer networking, implementing custom Bluetooth discovery/integration or even simple things like building a mobile application that doesn't ask you for five separate permissions before you can even display your UI. There's a reason for my surprise though - in the past the platform hasn't had the airtime it deserves - either on the documentation/communication side or the all-important community side. This is changing rapidly though - a brand new Developer Relations team at RIM have already launched a Developer Video Library, Developer Forums and new public betas over the past couple of months. However, it's DevCon 2008 that will be the annual highlight of this new initiative.

I'd strongly encourage all of you involved (or aspiring to be involved) in the BlackBerry developer community to not only check out the Keynote Speakers, comprehensive Session Catalog, Hands-on Labs and BlackBerry Partners Fund's Developer Challenge, but to also consider that for the first time ever, the worlds' leading technical minds focused on developing for the world's most powerful mobile platform will be in the same building for four intensive days of networking, sharing and learning - why wouldn't you want to be there?! The bonus - it's also in San Francisco.

DevelopIQ are proud sponsors of the first ever BlackBerry DevCon and I'll also be presenting a session in the Java Development track entitled Lessons Learned: Working with Advanced Java APIs for BlackBerry, aiming to highlight some of the most powerful features of the platform and how to get the best out of them. There will also be other excellent sessions from many seasoned 3rd party developers sharing their experiences as well as exciting interactive sessions with the RIM developer teams themselves.

So, what are you waiting for - register now using discount code DG3XNW and save $150 - I'll see you at the bar...

Another year, another iPhone. I'm a huge Apple fan - our home now runs four iPods, an AppleTV and a distributed Airport WiFi network to ensure everything can talk to each other, anywhere in the house. I think Apple are not only great at industrial design but also at building consumer electronics devices that 'just work' - that's what I want outside the day job.

However, the advent of the iPhone 3G (or rather the predictable hype around it) has caused many of our customers and partners to question: what about an iPhone version of product x now that the iPhone is enterprise-ready? Are all your corporate customers going to switch from BlackBerry to iPhone? No & No - or at least not until they've used one for a day.

Let's not confuse the addition of 'push' (or more accurately poke 'n pull) email to the iPhone with it becoming enterprise-ready - Windows Mobile has had the same Exchange ActiveSync support for five years and I haven't noticed that make a significant impact on BlackBerry's enterprise market share. I won't even mention hot topics such as manageability and security for large deployments.

But the GTD (Get Things Done) aspect of the BlackBerry is what business users now take for granted - like copy and paste, searching their Inbox (locally or remotely), checking availability and creating a meeting invite - all wirelessly from wherever they happen to be and without a daily battery recharge. This only scratches the surface of the comparison, but you get the idea. A great browser and media experience are not going to compensate for the lack of day-to-day business productivity. That's what won BlackBerry the enterprise market.

This hype has also caught some of the more vocal amongst the BlackBerry developer community who have been the source of some unrest for a while. Yes, Apple have done a great job of creating a powerful development environment incorporating a visual UI designer and a distribution mechanism that allows developers to easily make a living (albeit giving 30% to Mr Jobs), but once again it's aimed at Apple's core market - the consumer. How about Bluetooth integration, background processes and secure enterprise push - all of which are the bread and butter of our enterprise applications - nowhere to be seen in the iPhone SDK.

The BlackBerry developer experience will improve and RIM are listening - but as anyone in software knows - it's a little harder and takes a little longer to evolve an established mobile platform of over 3 years as opposed to starting from scratch. There are many changes afoot though - new APIs, more powerful hardware and a new Developers' Forum & Developer Conference already announced. I would therefore caution BlackBerry developers to really look under the hood of the iPhone SDK before considering its viability - just as with the business BlackBerry user - we also take many things for granted in creating mobile enterprise applications that 'just work'.

I therefore don't see the iPhone 3G in the same messianic light that many do - however Apple have done what Apple have always done best - redefined a product segment and excited the retail sector and its consumers through powerful marketing, strong industrial design and excellent usability - but as Yoda would say, "enterprise-ready, it is not".

UPDATE: Gartner just released an in-depth report on the iPhone 3G for Enterprise Use.

The WES after-shock kicked in yesterday with various articles and blogs on our recent activity at WES. Thanks to all the industry analysts, journalists and bloggers who stopped by our booth at WES and took the time to understand our solutions and spread the word. Here are some highlights of our publicity around WES...

"The first thing RIM's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis asked me when I sat down with him for an interview was whether or not I'd seen the PaperIQ product!"

Al Sacco from CIO.com on his favourite product of the show

"PaperIQ’s product is different, because it is so well thought out, end to end. I was telling you yesterday that integration matters, seamless integration with device ui, with data sources, with the network. This product is a prime example in integration."

Nedim Fresko from RIM in his live WES blog

Bill from Mobile Computing Authority & Kevin from CrackBerry.com interviewed me in their WES Special Edition Webcast on the final day at WES - literally as the booths were being torn down around us.

Let us know if you pick up on any other feedback from WES - it's good to know all the effort (okay, and fun) is worth it.

Well it was another hectic week at WES 2008 and we had our fair share of work to do, both on and off the show floor.

I took part in Alan Brenner's opening session on the Future of Mobile Applications which was delayed due to the room not being large enough to hold the audience. Once an additional room was setup with a video feed I did a live demo of our version 3 application including InkSearch. I was fortunate enough to be using WiFi - some of my presenting colleagues weren't so fortunate and were victims of a severely overloaded AT&T cell site at the venue that sent many an email addict over the edge during WES week.

Paul also gave a live session on our updated release in the Demo Theatre and Vodafone presented a Barclays Bank case study for DevelopIQ, our new custom development division launched at the show. DevelopIQ provides customers and partners a blank slate when it comes to ideas they may have for a BlackBerry solution - whether it involves Anoto Digital Pens, Bluetooth Barcode scanners, custom push applications or large scale consumer content applications.

As always, the Solutions Showcase was the buzz of the show with some great new applications taking the BlackBerry platform to a new level. As a Philips Pronto veteran of many years, having Unify4Life as our booth neighbour was particularly memorable - I can now control my entire home AV setup from my BlackBerry! Impatica also took their video-out solutions to a new level by previewing their in-vehicle screen interface for law-enforcement applications, allowing policemen to easily use their BlackBerry smartphone on the move.

And finally, the fun. DevelopIQ launched WES After Dark at the show. We always felt that the evenings at WES needed a little livening up, so why not leverage the BlackBerry platform as a social networking tool to co-ordinate the evening venues! We took the opportunity to show-off another one of RIM's latest technologies - Web Signals. This allowed us to push a custom icon out to every WAD subscriber that was updated automatically via custom push when new venue content was updated on the WAD live blog. Needless to say this was a hit with all WAD-goers and bigger plans are already afoot for next year. Now you have no excuse not to join us at WES!

Today seems like an appropriate day to write the inaugural PaperIQ blog post - the global launch of the BlackBerry Bold and the start of WES 2008. RIM has setup a dedicated room at the show for attendees to touch, feel and try out the latest and greatest BlackBerry smartphone.

The rumour and anticipation around the 9000 has been intense and expectations set high for the first BlackBerry smartphone that would combine a higher resolution screen, faster Intel processor, WiFi, GPS and 3G (HSDPA) in a single device. Throw in 1 GB of built-in flash memory in addition to the externally accessible micro-SD slot and you have a mobile powerhouse in your hand.

So, what do I think? Well as close partners of RIM, we've been developing our latest software features with this device in mind, so I've had the pleasure of getting very familiar with the performance and features of the new Bold over the past few weeks before launch. Whilst the Bold initially looks taller than its 8800 predecessor, as soon as you pick it up it feels much more comfortable in the hand. It's hard to beat the Curve in terms of form factor, but once you start using the new features and get used to the amazing screen, form factor suddenly takes a back seat. It's also worth mentioning the new themes provided with the Bold which lift the new OS 4.6 into a category only previously occupied by Apple.

Our new Ink Search feature (new in version 3) gives the Bold ample opportunity to show off. Enter a search phrase and your colour-coded results are returned from your server archive in seconds via the WiFi/3G connection. You then drill into a notebook page and the Bold crunches the ink data and displays your notebook page on the screen allowing you to pan, zoom and page through your notebook with ease.

2008 is an exciting year for the two fruit companies that design, manufacture and power their own devices - the Bold is a mouth-watering taster of the exciting innovations to come.