RIM says time is right for Malaysia, eyes local developers

Malaysia is considered a strategic market in Research in Motion’s (RIM) push into Southeast Asia, said Dany Bolduc, RIM’s regional director for Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

“This fiscal year was the first time a business plan was presented to Canada where Malaysia was part of a select group of markets that was discussed in detail,” he said at a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

With the Malaysian market’s low average age of 26 years old, and a still-growing internet penetration rate of 35% of the population, Bolduc sees plenty of room for RIM’s growth in the local smartphone market. “We think it’s the right time to be aggressive. This country is at an inflection point where we’re going to see a mass smartphone adoption soon.”

He added that Malaysia has been one of the strongest markets in Southeast Asia for enterprise users, while growth in the younger, consumer segment is rapid, seeing that 90% of BlackBerry owners here use BlackBerry Messenger — an app that’s associated with BlackBerry’s popularity among the younger consumer crowd.

Where developers are concerned, Bolduc said RIM is actively fostering developer relationships in Southeast Asia. “We’re making a concerted effort to work with developers in each market, including Malaysia. We’ve already had developer days in specific countries, where courses on working with the BlackBerry platform and monetisation are being held,” he said, adding that there would be a developer-focus event here soon.

Bolduc also said that while RIM has 3 million apps being downloaded daily, they aren’t playing the numbers game. “We don’t look at these apps on a one-on-one basis, but look at how those applications can interact with each other,” Bolduc said.

“The utility of making a conference call within the calendar are some of the layers of integration we’re looking at, and that’s more important than 1 billion apps that may not be relevant for consumers,” he said.

One app that’s expected to be integrated deeper into the platform is the BlackBerry Messenger 6, which had its API released on March 15 to developers. “About a third of BlackBerry users use BBM to communicate with co-workers, so it’s being increasingly used in the enterprise space. We’re extending the feature and functionality of BBM so that it would integrate with other applications, and be a collaborative tool for short, real-time bursts,” he said.

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