Hi everyone, my name’s Sarah and I’m a member of the Corporate Marketing Group at Research In Motion® (RIM®) – you may have read my past post on the Inside BlackBerry® blog. I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years and been part of many great projects, but my current role – leading the BlackBerry World marketing team – is perhaps my most exciting role as I get to connect directly with customers like you.

It’s been a fun and busy few months ramping up to open registration. For those of you who were familiar with our Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES), you will be interested to know that we have decided to move forward with a new conference, BlackBerry World, which will contain the WES content.

As of today, you can go to the official BlackBerry World website and register to join us at BlackBerry World 2011, to be held May 3-5 in Orlando, FL. If you buy at the early bird rate you’ll save $400 off the full conference pass – but this special rate ends February 25th, so be sure to buy your conference pass before the prices go up. As a new offer this year – because we know people have busy schedules – you now have the option to purchase a one-day pass for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday (your choice), if you cannot make it for all three days.

Part of the movement from WES to BlackBerry World reflects the shift in focus – we’re calling BlackBerry World a “360-degree view of all things BlackBerry,” which speaks to the broad range of BlackBerry topics that you’ll be able to explore. But BlackBerry World is also your chance to go really deep on the topics that interest you most. Looking for a new application to mobilize your sales team? The partners in the Solutions Showcase can help you find the right approach. Are you a new BlackBerry administrator? You can immerse yourself in technical sessions, administrator training and certification, and the Hands-on Labs. Want to know everything there is to know about BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System? Need a demo of BlackBerry® Presenter? Wondering how you can manage individual-liable devices in your organization? You’ll get the answers to all these questions at BlackBerry World, along with all the hands-on time you can handle with the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and our full range of BlackBerry smartphones.

I’ll be keeping you posted over the coming weeks as things progress, but we’re excited about how things are shaping up! Will you be there this year?

Fresh off a flight from Brazil the night before, surviving on only a few hours sleep yet full of his usual enthusiasm, I recently met with Rick Costanza, Regional Managing Director for Latin America, to chat a bit about the BlackBerry® Collaboration Forum he hosted. Similar in nature to the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES), this regional event – now in its second year – was an overwhelming success with over 7000 customers, including representation from Pequenas e Médias Empresas straight up to F500 enterprises, as well as various government agencies.

We spoke about the nature of the event, attendees, content, key takeaways, and challenges for the future. Like many other regions, Latin America is dealing with challenging economic times, and IT / Business decision are under significant pressure. The BlackBerry Collaboration Forum, however, clearly demonstrated how small investments in proven wireless solutions could, as Rick put it, “reduce cost, drive revenue, and bring organizations closer to customers.”

We captured our conversation on video, and added some live footage from the BlackBerry Collaboration Forum to give you a taste of the event. If you weren’t able to attend, or are simply curious about the LATAM region, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the above video.

The challenge, like Rick said, is how to do it “bigger and better” next year. I don’t know how he’ll do it after this year’s event, but if I know Rick, I’m sure he’ll find a way!

If you’re based in Latin America, hopefully you can join us at the BlackBerry Collaboration Forum next year, or for those with other regional interests, we’ll see you at WES.

BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System 5 (BlackBerry® MVS 5) was one of the many announcements during WES 2010. During the show I had the chance to speak with Andrew from the Voice and Collaboration Platform team about the voice over Wi-Fi® calling capability of BlackBerry MVS 5, use cases and security features. Check out the video above demonstrating Wi-Fi calling and call transferring using BlackBerry MVS 5, then click the link below for my interview with Andrew.

Q: So what are some specific use cases for BlackBerry MVS 5?

A: People are increasingly working from home at least a few days a week, so in this scenario with BlackBerry MVS 5, you wouldn’t have to do any call forwarding, and you wouldn’t have a need for a separate business line at home. You just take your BlackBerry® smartphone with you, connect to your home Wi-Fi and it’s like your office phone comes with you as well.

Being at home and being able to sync my BlackBerry smartphone to my Wi-Fi router and make secure calls through my work extension – just as if as I was at the office – is an absolutely fabulous use case for a growing number of people in their work lives.

Another great use for BlackBerry MVS 5 is on campuses. You could be in a hospital or manufacturing plant, away from desktop phones, but with access to a voice grade Wi-Fi network – now you can make calls over that Wi-Fi network from your BlackBerry smartphone using your enterprise/work number versus your mobile number.

BlackBerry MVS 5 is a great way to optimize the use of your cellular voice plan, address coverage issues and maintain privacy of your cell phone number when working away from the office.

Q: What does the end-user need to do to be able to use BlackBerry MVS 5?

A: If your organization already has BlackBerry® Enterprise Server and BlackBerry MVS 5, then you just need to contact your IT group to get your BlackBerry account added to BlackBerry MVS 5. Your IT administrator can then push the software update and the VPN credentials to your BlackBerry smartphone – no user interaction required! After that you can simply connect to an available Wi-Fi network and choose to make calls from your work line, over Wi-Fi, from your BlackBerry smartphone. You’ll love how easy it is, and IT will rest easy knowing that your mobile work calls are routed through the corporate PBX and have the ability to help maintain corporate compliance regulations.

Q: Then, as a user, you just have to make sure that you connect to an available Wi-Fi network from your BlackBerry smartphone, and everything is taken care of for you?

A: Correct. Once your Wi-Fi is turned on and you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, the administrator will have set it all up for you – you just have to start making calls.

Q: Anything else users need to know about BlackBerry MVS 5?

A: Your company needs to be running a supported IP PBX for BlackBerry MVS 5 (Cisco or Mitel to start, with other vendors to follow). Note that our BlackBerry MVS 4.6 version is available to customers with other vendors or legacy (TDM) PBXs and provides similar functionality over carrier mobile networks but does not support Wi-Fi calling.

If you’re looking for more info, be sure to check out the BlackBerry MVS 5 announcement and the BlackBerry MVS 5 product page on BlackBerry.com.