Spotify Said to Expand Further Across Southeast Asia by December

Spotify has been on an international expansion drive recently having added Argentina, Greece, Taiwan, and Turkey to its markets earlier this month. While it now has 32 countries on its table, the company is still looking to add a few more apparently before the calendar year is over. Our sources say that The Philippines and Indonesia are next on its schedule alongside Thailand.

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Ohdio FM Lets Listeners Create Playlists Based on Selected Artists

Indonesian online radio Ohdio.FM today announced an addition to its streaming channels in the form of artist selections. Ohdio now features a section called Radio Artis which allows listeners to automatically create playlists based on the band or the singer that they have selected. The new feature is being made available on the desktop first and will be making its way to the mobile interface in the coming weeks.

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Mixed Messages From BlackBerry in Keeping BlackBerry 7 Around

While BlackBerry Jam Asia was all about BlackBerry 10, the company recently launched a BlackBerry phone running the legacy BlackBerry 7 system. The 9720 is a low end device aimed at the fast growing markets in Asia. Why launch an outdated model instead of making the BlackBerry 10 platform available on a low end device?

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BlackBerry: No Commitments to BBM on the Desktop

BlackBerry showed off the ability to access and use BlackBerry Messenger using desktop machines on Thursday at the end of the keynote speech to kick off BlackBerry Jam Asia in Hong Kong. The soon to be cross-platform mobile messaging app seems to finally have been extended to the desktop. But has it? The world thinks that BlackBerry will soon release a BBM app for desktop computers. That’s not the case at all.

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BlackBerry Kicks Off Jam Asia With Focus on BlackBerry 10 Platform

It’s all BlackBerry 10 at BlackBerry Jam Asia as Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations, kicked off the two day event in Hong Kong amid massive uncertainties surrounding the company’s future outlook. With a botched BBM launch and a huge layoff on the horizon, Saunders put up a brave face and highlighted BlackBerry 10’s achievements.

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BlackBerry Signs $4.7 Billion Deal to Take Company Private

BlackBerry just announced that it has signed a letter of intent to hand over the company to Fairfax Financial Holdings for USD 4.7 billion which will take it private. BlackBerry has six weeks to consider the deal after which it is expected to be completed barring any alternative financial arrangements that the company may agreed upon. Fairfax Financial expects BlackBerry to stay the course and execute its most recently announced plan to refocus towards the enterprise market.

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BlackBerry to Cut 4500 Jobs Following Disastrous Quarter

Things are looking incredibly grim for BlackBerry today as it announced preliminary results of its Q2 2014 financial period which ended in August 2013. The company is facing massive job cuts, high levels of unsold inventory, a billion dollar loss, and it will be leaving the mass consumer market as it repositions itself as an enterprise device and services provider.

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BlackBerry Throws a Hail Mary Pass in Expanding BBM to iOS and Android

On Thursday, BlackBerry unveiled its latest mobile phone, the Z30, in Kuala Lumpur, and officially announced the availability of its cross platform BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) apps in Jakarta. In the mean time, the Wall Street Journal says that BlackBerry is planning to cut up to 40 percent of its workforce.

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Apple Allowing Older iOS Devices to Download Older Versions of Apps

iOS 7 was released to the public at midnight West Indonesia Time on Thursday and within 12 hours it has reached 25 percent of the installed base of iOS devices according to data from Mixpanel. While Apple said that it is set to have sold 700 million iOS devices in October, not all of them will be able to run iOS 7. Breaking with its past tradition, the company has allowed consumers to download the last compatible versions of apps if they cannot use iOS 7.

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Online Presence Crucial For Indonesian Travel Operators

Tourism is a big business in Indonesia and the rapid growth has spurred a swatch of new travel companies or tourism operators both offline and online, formal and informal. The country aims to host nine million tourists this year and Nielsen Global Consumer Survey in Q1 2013 said that traveling has become a second preference to savings in how people choose to allocate their income. With more travelers heading online for references, travel operators are being driven to establish stronger online presence to highlight and promote their destinations and services.

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