There certainly seems to be a lot of fire in the BlackBerry belly as the Canadian firm looks to become a dominant force in the mobile market once again.

The company starting to branch out in an attempt to control a bigger chunk of the market with the news that BBM will be available on iOS and Android devices from this summer, plus the fact that the BES 10.1 backend system will allow companies to control iOS and Android devices on top of BlackBerry handsets.

BlackBerry realises that a lot of its customers aren't aware of everything the firm can offer, and a degree of education needs to happen in order to increase awareness of the brand and its services.

Don't stop me now

Rob Orr, BlackBerry's UK Managing Director told TechRadar: "people need to understand that BlackBerry is able to, and the best in class at providing a secure VPN on an iPad.

"That's something that's probably not at the forefront of people's minds, so we're getting out there to tell people what we're doing and why we're doing it."

Talking about what's next for BlackBerry Orr said: "We're just going to keep going. We're going to be relentless, listen to our customers, engage with them and build the true reality of our mobile computing platform."

This sentiment echoed what BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said during his keynote presentation at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, explaining that the firm is "committed to making BB 10 the platform which will take the mobile industry to the next level."

Google today announced its very own take on the Samsung Galaxy S4 during the Google IO developers conference.

The device runs stock Android 4.2 with the same software that runs on the Nexus 4 - meaning it's essentially an S4 without the TouchWiz touch.

It will cost $649 unlocked (with an unlocked bootloader) on both AT&T and T-Mobile and house 16GB of storage. Users can pick it up starting Jun 26 via the Google Play Store.

"It's Google's take on Android," Huge Barra of Google said.

Developing...

Google announced during its Google IO keynote in San Francisco this morning that Android hit 900 million activated users in 2013.

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome, and apps, took the stage to announce the milestone during the keynote.

Pichair focused on Google's dual dominance in browsers and mobile through Android and Chrome. He said the possibility for developers to build thousands of third-party apps is what really excites Google.

Developing...

Ah, it's the age old festival debate: rinse your battery or brag efficiently on social networks about what an amazing time you're having?

EE just upped the stakes by confirming that it'll be providing 4G at Glastonbury this year. Maybe invest in a top-up charger and some comprehensive phone insurance before you go, yeah?

More blips!

We bet that the rest of our blips look good on the dancefloor.

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BlackBerry has extended the business functions of its BlackBerry 10 system with new messaging functions and an analytics tool for app developers.

It has added a new feature to its BlackBerry Enterprise Service with a free update to its Enterprise Instant Messaging, enabling BlackBerry 10 smartphone users to communicate over Microsoft Lync and Office Communication Server and IBM Lotus Sametime.

The BlackBerry Enterprise IM 3.0 app supports presence, one-to-one and multi-party instant messaging. Messages are integrated within the BlackBerry Hub, and it's possible to use the BlackBerry Balance function to separate business messages from personal apps and content.

Frank Cotter, Vice President of Mobile Computing at BlackBerry, said the move is designed to give remote workers access to various systems to make them more responsive to colleagues.

Analytics move

BlackBerry has also announced that by the end of June it will be ready to release Flurry Analytics, a tool that developers can integrate with their apps for access to user data. It provides developers with a consolidated dashboard across a number of platforms to provide information such as audience demographics, customer acquisition and user engagement.

The moves are part of a broadening of the capabilities of BlackBerry platforms. At this week's BlackBerry World event it has announced plans to launch its messaging application on iOS and Android and unveiled a new developer toolkit.

Fortuitous news from the Samsung camp today as an exec has claimed that six million Samsung Galaxy S4s were sold by 10 May.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 technically hit the market on April 26 2013, and four million handsets were shipped to supply chains by the end of the month - although presumably Samsung began shipping the handset to retailers ahead of that date.

Who knows if anyone at Samsung could have foretold that the S4 would break the internal records set by the Galaxy S3 which hit three million shipments in, conveniently, three weeks.

The chatty exec went on to force the point, telling Korean paper Chosun that "As of Friday [May 10], we have sold more than 6 million units, and we predict that we could break the 10-million mark by as early as the end of this month."

All aboard the friend ship

It's a little unclear over whether that six million figure is actual sales or just shipments, which muddies these 'early figures' - although there's no doubt the S4 is selling like rock cakes made of molten lava.

While shifting phones is something of Samsung's forte, it could be there's no word on how many S4s have actually been exchanged for cash yet.

But we wouldn't be surprised if it equals or breaks the S3's record of 20 million sales in 100 days.

After all, in our Samsung Galaxy S4 review we deemed it to be the best Samsung phone to date, and a solid 4.5 star phone. Unfortunately for Samsung, it didn't quite manage to topple the HTC One which retains its title as Best Phone In the World Today - for now.