Canada is surely showing BlackBerry the love. According to Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry CEO and President, the Z10 release was “the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone.” Unfortunately no hard sales numbers were reported from any of our carriers.
Over on the East Coast, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter has committed to give BlackBerry some money in return for jobs. Dexter stated he’ll give $10 million ($2 million a year for the next 5 years) if BlackBerry ensures they’ll employ at least 400 people in the community. This Bedford location has already been heavily funded by the province, something to the tune of $16 million since 2005, and was apparently on the cusp of being shut down.
In addition, this new deal will also see the province build out the “BlackBerry 10 Centre of Excellence.” BlackBerry stated they will “invest $4 million annually in the centre of excellence to upgrade skills, purchase new equipment, hardware and software to support the new platform, and for research and development.” Nice to see jobs staying in Canada.
Source: Nova Scotia
Via: The Province
(Thanks HasIssa!)
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