RIM executive hints at front facing camera on a 'Berry early in 2010

Following last week's Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, a writer for Tiny Comb had a quick 10 minute conversation with a RIM executive who was kept anonymous. During the chat, this executive discussed a few topics that were on his mind. First was App World which he admitted was off to a slow start in terms of sales and developer applications. His excuse, uh, comment was, "It’s tough when you are going up against a company operating one platform and perfecting a single piece of hardware”. Wonder which company he was thinking of?

As far as carriers are concerned, the anonymous RIM exec said that his company was fortunate to have great relationships with all of the networkers. He pointed out that in the U.S., it is a big advantage to offer the same device on more than just one carrier. When queried about AT&T in particular, he responded that the Canadian manufacturer has not had anywhere near the same amount of problems that Apple has had with the iPhone and the carrier. And speaking about the iPhone, the unnamed executive pointed out that the iPhone and a BlackBerry are two different phones with two different demographics. He added that in the last year, BlackBerry has had heavy growth in the 18-25 year old range.

The last topic was hardware and when asked what RIM would do if Apple were to add a front facing camera on the iPhone, he replied that some of the carriers that his company deals with can handle video conferencing. The anonymous employee said, "video conferencing is something that could completely change the mobilelandscape and it is something we have been thinking about and workingon for quite some time. You will start seeing something early next year”. Until we know the name and position of the anonymous person, this is not a bet that we would be inclined to take. Now if his initials are J.B., that might be another story.

source: tinycomb via IntoMobile