EMEA Annual Beauty Contest Recognizes RIM Alliance Efforts

Once a year, for the last four years, RIM have persuaded members of their partnership alliance, specifically those EMEA collaborators based in the Europe, Middle East and Asia, to gather in a warm, sunlit and pleasantly comfortable environment, to discuss industry trends, developments, strategy; and enjoy a few cocktails.

This culminated in the 2011 Miss RIM revelry; where several categories of BlackBerry support features, were recognized by their peers and presumably held aloft a punnet of BlackBerry’s as they thanked their wife, mistress or granny.

The RIM Press Release

On a more serious note, recognition of these invaluable freelance contributors whose fringe contributions make our smartphone experience more efficient, more rewarding, more productive; are laudable. Congratulations from we mere mortals at UnlockWorldWide.com who benefit from their skill.

Today’s Research In Motion press release announced the winners of the BlackBerry EMEA Alliance 2011 innovation awards.  The awards and recognition took place at an Alliance Summit held in Alicante, Spain and recognized the efforts of Alliance contributors in seven categories.

And The Winners Are?

Regrettably the Press Release offers no detailed explanation on the contribution of each category winner. It does lead us to their website where we can read about the attributes of the winners from 2010. Not what we promised you. We decided to visit the winners individual web pages for some hint of their talents.

The categories were:

• Driving Innovation in Enterprise and the Public Sector – Won by TechMobile Srl

TechMobile has developed different types of tech mobile software for mobile platforms, making the fundamental presence within the business environment, impacting on the efficiency of operational processes and decision-making: BerryWork, BerryCRM, BerryWhere, BerryCode.

• Accelerating Innovation for Entrepeneurs  / Starting And Growing A Small Business – Won by QUALTEH JR

BlackBerry® Business Solutions are about much more than wireless email. They’re about having everything you need, right where you need it. BlackBerry® Business Solutions are about wireless access to your critical information and communications through a combination of applications, services, and peripherals.

• Optimizing The BlackBerry Experience – Won by SystAG Systemhaus GmbH

The simple and fast implementation and the ability of the central administration is one of the highlights of this solution. You also have only one device for communication. You have efficient and secure access to e-mails. You can be reached at any time via GPRS . You receive Web Mails and appointments in real time from any location at any time. Java-based mobile applications allow you to access your corporate data

• Entertainment on BlackBerry – Won by DevelopIQ Limited

Whether it’s real-time sporting events, premium content delivery or streaming media – we have the ability to not only develop the apps themselves across the leading smartphone and tablet OS, but also the highly resilient, app-centric cloud infrastructure that will ensure your users can’t live without your app in their daily routine.

• Going Social / Best BBM Connected App – Won by Wikitude

At the BlackBerry World™ conference, we featured a new application created by Mobilizy: Wikitude. The Wikitude demo video showcases the power of BlackBerry 7 and the exciting opportunity augmented reality can bring to your apps. You can learn more and get started with BlackBerry 7 today.

• Most Innovative PlayBook Tablet Solution – Won by HDS Digital SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market.

• People’s Choice Award – Won by Vanatur World Mobile Solutions

Today, companies and organizations are demanding applications that solve very specific problems with simple deployments, rapid ROI and in many cases are framed in more ambitious projects long term. This requires that when looking for a technology partner is important to be skilled in the art, who knows “the business”, which implies that is capable of coordinating the different areas that are involved in the process being improved, and implement solutions that address current needs and can be grown as the needs of the organization.

Why Did RIM Recognize Their Effort

Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations at RIM offered the following statement:

“In developing the tools that help our customers drive more value out of their investment in BlackBerry devices and services, our partners play a vital role in the continuing development of the BlackBerry ecosystem,”

“The EMEA Innovation Awards were created to honor the exceptional achievements of those partners who have utilized the BlackBerry platform to create best-in-class apps with real benefits to businesses, the public sector and consumers. It’s inspiring to see developers across a number of sectors and disciplines helping consumers make the most of their smartphones and helping organizations transform the way they do business. All winners have contributed significantly to the BlackBerry app landscape and are delivering high quality end user experiences.”

Does The Beauty Gala Contribute To Substance

At UnlockWorldWide.com we love to be told that we are providing a good mobile phone unlocking service, communicating well, or simply entertaining you with one of or peripheral articles (we were pleased that you enjoyed our “Is the FLUSH a New Android Phone?” article.

We feel that rewards and recognition are a positive incentive to often small and driven developers of innovative service, entertainment and business apps.

So, kudos to RIM / EMEA for exercising their Bully Pulpit to recognize associates initiative, innovation and excellence.

In fact their only oversight appears to have been forgetting an award for UnlockWorldWide.com; we had a space over the fireplace cleared to display our trophy!

Oh, well, we will put the fifth grade tennis trophy back on the mantelpiece.