Experts from Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, are scheduled to arrive in Jordan in March to train local programmers on developing apps and games that run on the BlackBerry 10 platform. "BlackBerry will send its experts to train Jordanian programmers on the new BlackBerry 10 platform in March...This will help local developers create apps and games that run on the new platform," Nour Khrais, chairman of the Jordan Gaming Task Force, told The Jordan Times on Thursday. "Usage of BlackBerry smartphones is huge in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the rest of the Arab Gulf states. Therefore, when Jordanian developers are trained on the new platform, they can create apps and games for BlackBerry that are in high demand in the region, especially in Arabic," said Khrais. Training will be conducted at the Jordan Gaming Lab at the King Hussein Business Park, he said. Hekmat Jaber, country director for the Levant (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon) at BlackBerry, stressed that RIM is interested in increasing cooperation with Jordanian app developers in the near future. "BlackBerry has collaborated with Jordanian app developers before. We are looking into increasing this cooperation as we believe that Jordan is home to a pool of talents in this field," he said in a recent interview with The Jordan Times. "We are keen on increasing the number of apps provided in Arabic for users in the region, especially when it comes to developing apps for the BlackBerry 10 platform," he added. According to Mohammed Al Mefleh, director of product management for the Middle East at BlackBerry, there are currently about 70,000 applications available for BlackBerry 10. "We will work... to increase the volume of these apps to 100,000 by the middle of this year," Mefleh said. "We will work with local developers in the region to ensure that the apps are in line with the cultural traditions... of each society," he noted. BlackBerry's app world in the Middle East has currently more than 60,000 apps, of which 2,000 are in Arabic. Jordan Times
