In addition to our live tweet at @idmomo, here’s the recap of the event.
It was a full house event, so packed, but also full of enthusiasm. We are featuring a bunch of developers and leading people in BlackBerry world in Indonesia. Also attending are a lot of movers and shakers in the mobile industry.
Agung Wijanarko (Indosat, @gungwi) opened the session by sharing his insights titled “BlackBerry Beyond Email Applications.” First he showed an amazing graphic that BB has hit the A phone in Indonesia in term of mobile web usage. Then he went on to introduce two types of BB applications (beyond email), first the horizontal applications (mass market) and then the vertical applications.
The horizontal applications is very important, because BlackBerry has grown out of its root as corporate solution into a consumer product. Sixty percent (60%) of the users are now consumer, and it’s growing faster. Dominating in the mass market apps are social networking and instant messaging apps.
On the vertical app, Agung explained that mobile CRM is a very potential market that needs to be addressed. This is one of the main reason that people are still carrying their laptop when they are mobile.
His conclusion…
Indonesia is promising market and the new red hot spot for RIM and BlackBerry!
Next on stage was Deddy Avianto (ID Berry [BB only website], @idberry). He shared a business potential that many people often overlooked… BlackBerry themes. And not just simple themes, but showing that we – Indonesian – can do a lot of innovation in these themes. His theme creation are often featured in BlackBerry review websites.
One nice example is a theme that he did with BMW Indonesia to promote their new car. (Talking about mobile marketing).
dadBerry is also organizing several BB developer gathering. So watch his website/tweet. SPECIAL: he is offering for limited time free theme for us, id-momo-ers… so get it now. Details on his presentation.
Fahmi Gustiawan (Pravina) and Setiadji (Pemda DKI) actually impressed me with what they are sharing… M-gov application on BlackBerry… and not only Powerpoint-ware but already implemented in our very own Jakarta government.
So for example, the government can check Katulampa water gate level, for early flood mitigation/warning system. Then there is this (potentially) open and realtime communication channel to government officials wrt feedback (read: complaint) of public services — traffic jam, condition of public facility, … The Governor is monitoring and actively using these services!
This is very real, and hopefully can improve the quality of public services.
BTW, Fahmi was presenting using his BB, no laptop… whoa…
Next, on the lineup, were 4 Indonesian developers (one is half Indonesian, actually… 
).
- Willson Cuaca (xsago, @foyage)… maker of Foyage BlackBerry LBS application. Foyage offered editorial and user-generated review for point of interests around Indonesia and Singapore, which utilize your LBS/location information. It also does traffic as well…
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- Ronald Ishak (domikado, @ronishak)… domikado is a lifestyle application for BB that got so many download within days of their launch (20k downloads – their 1st year target, in 3 days… Ed. Ron, your investors will probably triple or quadruple your next year target, good luck…). He simply said that, “… this will change your lifestyle” from how you read news and how you trade stocks.
- Mark Hanusz (equinox apps)… expanded from iPhone to BB… simply because it’s something inevitable. Their jakartaglobe application is ported to BB. It’s offering a platform for mobile news, which includes monetization via advertising as well.
- Sukimin Irawan (caripromo)… his application is the one you should install if you’re a deal/promo chasers… it aggregates all the current promo from all over the place, food, shopping, electronics, movies, etc. (Ed. I wish all the marketers use this instead of spamming us with irrelevant SMS).
- We actually missed 7langit… guys, next time you should present ya…
The good thing with applications is that just this week BlackBerry launched their AppWorld (anyone who hasn’t download it please do so…. goto mobile.blackberry.com from your handset – you Nokians should download Ovi Store as well!). Although, like Agung mentioned, discovery of application is also a challenge in app stores. Probably we need in the near future guides to “app store marketing tactics”… But it’s a nice problem to have.
Last but not least, Michael Smith from Yahoo! developer network made a short announcement about the upcoming OpenHack day on the 21-22 November. It’s a fun day for you developers. Fun facts: Yahoo! has 63 million users in South East Asia, so it’s a huge market. Details can be found on this website.
So to wrap up… “Happy thumbing!”
PS. Slides can be found at the usual place.
