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BlackBerry manufacturer, Research in Motion, held the Eighth Annual Mega Symposium in Orlando, Florida from May 4-8, 2009, to focus on the practical applications and rewards of wireless technologies. In addition to the many keynotes and breakout sessions, there were hands-on labs, a demo theater, and solutions showcased. About 140 exhibitors and 5,000 attendees actively participated, despite the sweeping recession and spreading swine flu, particularly in this region bordering Mexico, making the event a grand success.

Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO, Research In Motion, while formally launching the event on May 5, 2009 said, “At Research In Motion, we have over 12,000 employees dedicated to a single task-providing enterprise grade solutions with over 2,00,000 servers deployed globally. He further said, “Till today, we have made shipments of 50 mn BlackBerry units worldwide, and 26 mn units in the last fiscal alone, which exhibits our remarkable growth.

During the event, Freeny Bawa, VP, RIM India, said, “Even during this time of global recession, India added 15 mn subscribers in January 2009. It also shows that India offers a great growth potential for the BlackBerry market. Our smartphone is a converged device for both enterprise as well entertainment purposes, and as RIM's CEO says, “BlackBerry is the most expensive cell phone, but the cheapest plasma TV.”

On the Indian market for BlackBerry, Mike Lazaridis said, “India has English as a common language and has very strong cultural and academic success. I think BlackBerry is a natural vehicle to support that kind of culture and success. We hope BlackBerry becomes an important vehicle to communicate and people stay in touch with each other.”

Following the keynote address of Mike Lazaridis, user experiences from many global organization were shared with the audience. Robert J Picciano, GM, Lotus and WebSphere Portal Software, IBM Software group, shared how his company's business status improved after using BlackBerry. He made nine predictions for 2009 vis-a-vis the BlackBerry platform. His predictions included universal access to colloboration, messaging becoming an integrated platform, managing through human networks, telephony becoming voice collaboration, Linux emerging on the corporate desktop, and situational applications solving daily problems.

Laurent Philonnenko, VP and GM, Unified Communications Business Unit, Cisco, said, “ We are in the midst of a major transition, and RIM vision reflected in BlackBerry will help people sail through the transition smoothly.”

Shane Robinson, executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer, HP, spoke on transforming the world's biggest challenges like globalization and information explosion into opportunities. He said, “New modes of communications, collaboration and computing have created a new paradigm. HP and RIM are delivering an integrated ecosystem from infrastructure to services to devices. Everything as a service will enable a host of new business models.”