The Waterloo-based maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, Research In Motion (RIM) Inc., has confirmed a new partnership with the online media retailer 7digital Inc.
The strategic partnership aims to make RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet more attractive to consumers by offering a seamless app for users to purchase digital media, including individual songs, albums, videos, among other content.
RIM said in a statement that the PlayBook would come pre-installed with the 7digital application, with access to about 13-million licensed songs in the 7digital library, including from Warner Music Group, Universal, among other production companies.
7digital has already developed distribution partnerships to get its application on more devices, including with Samsung who added the 7digital application in its popular Google Android powered Samsung Galaxy tab.
An official launch date for the BlackBerry PlayBook has yet to be announced by RIM, but reports peg the device to launch on April 10, 2011.
The PlayBook is the first tablet computer to be produced by RIM, as the company hopes, along with Google, to chip away at Apple’s dominant position as the tablet market leader with about 90-percent market share.
RIM says the 7digital application would only be available to North American consumers at launch, with additional countries to be added later in the year.
The news comes as Apple today released version 10.2.1 of its popular iTunes software, bringing better support for users to seamlessly stream content from their PC to their iOS devices like the iPad and the iPhone.
7digital was founded at the beginning of 2004 in London, the company is privately held and has secured about $8.5-million in total funding, including from Benchmark Capital Ventures, among other venture capital firms. About 40 people currently work at the 7digital.
TAGS: 
Ensure that you follow us on 
Add value by subscribing (
Tip Us