There sure was a lot of talk about “Blackberry People” last week, and RIM casually threw the phrase around so much, that it seemed they were actually trying to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of every Blackberry World attendant.

Our casual joking aside, it was evident throughout the keynote, and the entire conference, that RIM undoubtedly took the time to figure out who their majority user base is, and what they stand for.

Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research In Motion made several comments regarding Blackberry users, elaborating on who they are as a community.

“We spend a lot of time on who are we mostly talking to, who is the target customer. The common denominator with all our customers is that they are striving to succeed.”

“Blackberry people care about being productive.”

“Blackberry is focused on Blackberry people, our users are hyperconnected.”

The question still remains, who are “Blackberry people”? Are “Blackberry People” comprised of mainly an older audience which includes business minded folk, or are “Blackberry People” younger in nature and ideals?

Do Blackberry People walk the city streets with the rest of us common folk, or are they floating along on some trans-spiritual highway in the heavens?

It’s hard to focus on such a diverse community and choose one focus group, or one specific age group. Blackberry users are everywhere, and the community is made up of people of all ages, denominations, and nationalities. Most of all, Blackberry users seem to have their own agenda when it comes to Blackberry products, and they utilize each platform to achieve whichever goals it is they need to achieve.

Blackberry People include corporate and business employees, DJ’s and music enthusiasts, developers and programmers, and even young “productive” minded hooligans.

One thing is for certain, the Blackberry platform is now solely dedicated to “success”. RIM wants its consumers to succeed, and they were pushing this idea with every resource available to them.

Thorsten Heins is working to change the way Blackberry applies to the world, not necessarily by changing the platform or their business goals and directives, but by this idea of success that he so fondly alludes to. During the general session on Tuesday morning, Heins went on further to say that the idea of “Blackberry People” and “Success” is not mutually exclusive.

“When I talk about people that want to be successful, that is not in any way exclusive. The design objective of Blackberry products is to help people succeed.”

“There are 55 million Blackberry subscribers.”

“Blackberry is all about success. This is the core of Blackberry.”

Heins also clarified that the Blackberry platform “aids 77 million people to succeed on a daily basis.”

It would appear, RIM is a little obsessed with this idea of success, which is not necessarily a terrible thing. At least it’s evident they’re focusing on the future. Also, we now know who “Blackberry People” are, sort of.

We, at Blackberry Rocks, will stick to believing in our previous idea of Blackberry People, floating spiritual orbs who happen to use electronic gadgets to achieve their aspirations.

Blackberry users began squirming in their seats yesterday morning during the keynote when RIM confirmed that the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device is, in fact, running the latest version of the Blackberry OS.

The demonstrations of the device and the Blackberry 10 features showed off a tremendously fluid user interface and virtual experience, but there was one blinding problem. The Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device is purely a touchscreen candy-bar style phone, a physical keyboard was absent.

RIM has always offered Blackberry devices that included a hardware keyboard in the past. It’s understandable, and only natural, that worry would wrack a community which has grown accustomed to a physical keyboard on their mobile devices, especially when it comes to the public demonstration of a touchscreen mobile device that includes only virtual keyboard support.

Thorsten Heins, CEO of Research In Motion, confirmed this morning during a press exclusive Q&A session that RIM will be releasing Blackberry 10 devices with a physical keyboard. His confirmation puts to rest the rumors that Blackberry 10 will be a touchscreen exclusive. For those of you still holding your breath, you can now release.

“I can confirm that the physical keyboard will be an option in the Blackberry 10 portfolio.”

Heins went on further to say that while developing BB10 RIM focused on one question.

“What is the ideal typing experience on a Blackberry?”

The Blackberry experience was designed with this specific approach in mind. It’s no secret that typing is a core component of the Blackberry platform.

“We want the typing experience on the Blackberry to be the best in the world, whether that be on a physical keyboard or a virtual keypad.”

Several times during the keynote yesterday morning, Heins hinted at the idea that the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha device was only one of many products to come. But it wasn’t until this morning at the Q&A that he officially confirmed it.

“Make no mistake we only showed you one element of what the future of Blackberry will be, there are other elements to come.”

So, for those of you who have been erupting in fear, loathing and just pure nerd rage, you can relax your minds. The Blackberry 10 device lineup will include devices with a physical keyboard.

Throughout the event, we were certain of two things, RIM is backing the new features of the Blackberry 10 OS, and they are also backing NFC (Near Field Communication) technology with everything they’ve got.

According to RIM, NFC technology is the link between the physical and virtual worlds. Several times RIM employee’s stated that NFC is going to be the next biggest achievement of mobile technology since the birth of data.

A couple of demonstration booths we visited at the Blackberry Solutions Showcase utilized NFC.

At the Blackberry Music Gateway booth, a demo showed that the new gateway model takes advantage of NFC technology to connect instantly to a Blackberry mobile device.

RIM also had a booth showcasing the Blackberry office setup (it was comprised of a Playbook, a Blackberry mobile phone, a screen and wireless peripherals), and the office used NFC to communicate between various devices.

Of course, there are other practical uses for NFC technology. Allow us to paint you a picture; imagine paying at a standard checkout counter, using only your phone, by merely tapping the cash register. There are no other button presses, key strokes or screen gestures required, just a basic tap of the phone on the NFC enabled transmitter gets the job done.

Alternatively, imagine gaining entry to a 24 hour gym (which is always locked) by simply tapping a Blackberry device to an electronic lock.

The possibilities are endless, which leaves a veil of mystery shrouding the future of NFC. Even so, it’s not hard to see that NFC technology has massive amounts of potential.

We tend to agree with RIM on this one, therefore we’d love to see more NFC technology implemented in real world scenarios. Hopefully RIM can convince enough businesses to take advantage of NFC technology before the Blackberry 10 OS is ready to launch.

During the keynote, this morning, Research In Motion’s CEO, Thorsten Heins, gave an exclusive sneak peek at the new features of Blackberry 10. Oh boy, are we excited!

Judging by what we saw during the presentation it looks as if RIM has finally decided to use innovation in its newer Blackberry 10 OS. Of course, we are by no means saying that RIM wasn’t innovative in the past, but up until now, RIM has been set in its ways, which is rather evident by the company’s recent financial failures.

As Heins stated in the presentation, the new user interface of Blackberry 10 is “all about the flow.”

“We want a user paradigm that is easy and fast. The flow is taken to a new level in Blackberry 10. Everything flows continuously, it never stops, and because of that you just flow through it.”

“Applications run in realtime in the background. This means that apps run all the time, and never shut down, you can just flow through them.”

“With Blackberry 10, we are making you agile and nimble.”

RIM is remarkably confident that the new user interface and features of Blackberry 10 will lead to it’s success. We’re pretty confident too after seeing a demo, the Blackberry Dev Alpha device was responsive, fluid and innovative.

As is evident from the demos of BB10, the home screen UI is slightly similar to the panels seen on the Windows Phone OS. Users will have instant access to the most prominent features, including the infamous Blackberry universal inbox. All applications and tasks can be quickly swapped out utilizing the unique “Glance” feature.

The Blackberry 10 operating system will be available on all next generation Blackberry devices as well as the current gen Playbook (it will receive an OTA update). There’s been no confirmation whether or not older gen Blackberry devices will receive an update.

Unfortunately, both the hardware and software demoed during the keynote are not finished products which means design could change at any time.

For those of you who didn’t have the opportunity to catch the sneak peek that aired during the keynote, don’t you fret! We’ve got the Blackberry 10 sneak peak video below, as well as some images of the new OS in action.

If you weren’t able to attend BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012 or watch the live webcast yesterday, RIM just posted a replay of the entire General Session Keynote. We’ve already seen some impressive stats come out of DevCon Europe but there’s a lot more where that came from, and now you can watch it from the comfort of your PlayBook or other device. The Keynote speakers included

• Thorsten Heins - President and CEO, Research In Motion
• Alec Saunders - Vice President, Developer Relations and Ecosystem Development, QNX Software Systems Limited
• Christopher Smith - Vice President, BlackBerry Application Platform and Tools, Research In Motion

To watch the live replay of the General Session Keynote head on over to blackberrydevcon.com/europe/webcast. Feel free to leave a comment about the replay below or in the forums!

Last night I let you know that RIM named Thorsten Heins its new President and CEO. While many of you might not be happy with this change, I think this “shake up” is exactly what RIM needs. Along with the press release about his appointment from yesterday, RIM also posted some video interviews with Thorsten where he talks about RIM’s strengths, the next 5 years, growth and enthusiasm, PlayBook 2.0, the best people, motivation and his proudest moment.

Check out the videos below!

WATCH THE VIDEOS!

Big news coming out of Waterloo this evening! Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stepped down as Co-CEOs at RIM, naming Thorsten Heins the new President and CEO. Here’s some biographical info about Thorsten:

Thorsten Heins was named President and Chief Executive Officer at Research In Motion in January 2012. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer, Product Engineering, overseeing the BlackBerry smartphone portfolio world-wide.

Prior to joining RIM in 2007, Thorsten held several positions in the wireless arena including the Chief Technology Officer of Siemens’ Communications Division and several general management positions in Hardware and Software businesses.

Thorsten holds a master’s degree in Science and Physics from the University of Hannover in Germany. Thorsten also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce Inc.

Here’s a summary of the press release and changes to the Board:

• Board Acts on Recommendation of Co-CEOs to Implement Succession Plan
  
• Mike Lazaridis Named Vice Chair of the Board
  
• Jim Balsillie Remains a Director
  
• Barbara Stymiest Named Independent Board Chair
  
• Prem Watsa Named Independent Director

For more info check out the full press release below or tune into RIM’s webcast tomorrow morning at 8AM ET!

FULL PRESS RELEASE!