During the BlackBerry Jam Americas conference in San Jose this week, Research In Motion (RIM) showcased the power of the BlackBerry 10 platform and demonstrated the key differentiators that developers are leveraging to create apps that engage and delight customers.

BlackBerry 10 applications from Cisco, Foursquare, Sencha, Gameloft, Halfbrick Studios, Madfinger Games and Funkoi were revealed, demonstrating applications that are feature rich and integrated with core functions of BlackBerry 10 and embracing the seamless flow that only BlackBerry 10 provides.

A recent survey conducted by RIM, of the BlackBerry developers using the 5,000 Dev Alpha test devices distributed during the BlackBerry Jam World Tour, found that 99 per cent of respondents had already started BlackBerry 10 projects.

“The response to BlackBerry 10 on all levels has been incredible and developers have certainly embraced this new platform and are taking early advantage of the tools and support we are providing to them. Our community is telling us about apps from every category that look and feel just amazing,” said Alec Saunders, Vice President, Developer Relations and Ecosystems at Research In Motion.

The SDKs for BlackBerry 10 were updated yesterday to bring more collaboration, native feature integration and app sharing opportunities. This update makes the native SDK API-complete and enhances the HTML5 toolset, BlackBerry WebWorks. Further updates were also made to Adobe AIR and Android runtimes.

The BlackBerry Dev Alpha testing units also received an OS update that allows developers to take advantage of the Beta 3 version of the SDKs. BlackBerry developers can now leverage APIs that can integrate with core apps contacts, calendar, BlackBerry Messenger and the BlackBerry Hub and more while they build their applications.

The developer community has been enthusiastic about the opportunities that BlackBerry 10 brings as a new market to reach with applications, a platform that allows for deep integration and user engagement, and a platform built for content creation and sharing, all on devices that have a beautiful user interface that developers can easily leverage.
 
"Mobile has become a major accelerator for business collaboration. Box and BlackBerry enable CIOs to embrace mobile-first policies that transform the way knowledge workers access and share key business documents. Box's deep integration with BlackBerry 10 will enable a seamless and secure mobile working experience wherever the office may take you.", Matthew Self, VP of Platform Engineering at Box.

“The Weather Network is excited to develop for BlackBerry 10. The innovations in the operating system will provide our existing loyal consumers and new consumers an application that is as stunning as it is informative, helping users to plan for anything.”, Gita Ashar, Director of Mobile and Emerging Technologies for Weather .Network.

“Our customers have shared with us how critical it is to be able to use BlackBerry smartphones to collaborate and easily meet over the web from anywhere, anytime using Cisco WebEx Meetings securely delivered through the Cisco WebEx Cloud. Today, we are excited to announce that Cisco WebEx Meetings for BlackBerry will be available as a free download once BlackBerry 10 devices are launched.", Raj Gossain, Vice President of Products for Cisco Cloud Collaboration Applications Group.