BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 keynote liveblog!

RIM's hit a bit of a rough patch lately, but that doesn't mean the company can't thrill us here at DevCon Americas 2011. Mike Lazaridis is in the house, and we're expecting some good news to come out during his keynote. What's DevCon got in store? All will be revealed in due course, so bookmark this page and tune in at the times below for the big show.

Feel free to throw your time zone and day in the comments below, you know you want to.

05:30AM - Hawaii (October 18th)
08:30AM - Pacific (October 18th)
09:30AM - Mountain (October 18th)
10:30AM - Central (October 18th)
11:30AM - Eastern (October 18th)
04:30PM - London (October 18th)
05:30PM - Paris (October 18th)
07:30PM - Moscow (October 18th)
12:30AM - Tokyo (October 19th)

1:21PM And that's it for now!

1:20PM Empathy's important, and Alec's got that in spades. He wants you to email him with feedback. Yes, he's already seen the Nyan cat, so no need to forward that along.

1:19PM Alec's regaling us with tales from his past. He worked at a start-up before coming to RIM, so he "understands the pain" of being a developer.

1:18PM Now he's hyping up the backwards and forwards compatibility. Any app made natively or in HTML 5 today will work with tomorrow's PlayBook.

1:17PM We get it, Alec. Developing for BlackBerry is both easy and profitable!

1:16PM Another myth: BlackBerry devs don't make money. We've heard a lot of reasons already why this isn't true, but Alex is hitting us with some more knowledge. AppWorld apps generate 40 percent more profit than Android apps. Plus, there's that 13 percent of devs making over $100,000 per year.

1:14PM Next, the myth that BlackBerry users don't use apps. Wrong again, 4-5 million app downloads per day, 140 million per month.

1:13PM First up, BlackBerry's market is shrinking -- not so, says Alec, the market has grown by 20 million subscribers in the last year.

1:13PM Alec's recounting urban myths surrounding BlackBerry's market.

1:12PM Straight cash, homie.

1:11PM App World is the second most profitable app market in the world today. You hear that Android?

1:10PM Ad Service 2.0, Payment Service 1.5 with subscription billing, and Scoreloop Social Gaming Service are coming out today for the BlackBerry Jam Market.

1:09PM Back to you, Alec.

1:08PM Everyone's getting a copy of Adobe Flash Bulder 4.5 for showing up. Cheers from the crowd!

1:07PM Now we've got a game using Adobe's new Stage 3D technology, which uses the same flash player as what's on the desktop PC.

1:06PM Got a steampunk-esque little bot wandering around solving puzzles. Very cute.

1:05PM We've got Machinarium, built for the web in Flash initially, and ported to the PlayBook using AIR.

1:04PM And now, Danny's going to demo some of this fabulous Flash on the PlayBook.

1:04PM AIR 3 and Flash Player 11 come with the new OS release.

1:03PM Danny's got some new stuff for us, a developer release of PlayBook 2.0 is coming out today!

1:02PM Facebook and Evernote are just two of the more popular Flash apps.

1:02PM He's talking up the native AIR implementation on the PlayBook... over 4,000 flash apps thus far.

1:01PM He's really excited about the possibilities with HTML 5.

1:00PM Ladies and gents, Adobe's Danny Winokur, VP and GM of Interactive Development.

12:58PM More community building opportunities. 40 cities with developer groups, and you can start one in your city if one isn't around... any takers?

12:57PM Now he's talking about the BlackBerry Developer Challenge.

12:56PM These hackathons will be happening on every continent, and Alec wants you to come "Jam with us."

12:55PM We've got testimonials from devs talking up the awesomeness of BBM.

12:54PM Now a video about the hackathons BlackBerry's been sponsoring recently. People milling about at parties, collaborating at their computers, writing on chalkboards, etc.

12:53PM Round of applause from the peanut gallery.

12:53PM He's listing off all the open source libraries and frameworks that are now available to devs.

12:52PM Alec is now talking about the BlackBerry Open Source Initiative.

12:51PM Simon Hain, John Tegen, and Peter Hansen are also getting love for their prodigious posting too. Congrats, fellas!|

12:51PM BlackBerry Jam Community Forum Contributors are getting some Jammie love. Peter Strange for 1,000 + posts in the last 3 months.

12:50PM There's an HTML 5 site with WebWorks 2.0, and an Android player portal as well.

12:49PM There's no registration process now until devs actually submit an app. Nice.

12:48PM Alec is showing us the BlackBerry developer portal now, which has microsites to allow devs to drill down to the info they need easily.

12:47PM "We're fixing the impediments" to developing for BlackBerry "as fast as we can."

12:46PM The Recognition Program will give devs a "Jammie." What for? For being an awesome dev, of course.

12:46PM We got BlackBerry Jam Sessions, Community and Zone. Plus there's the BlackBerry Jam Recognition Program.

12:45PM BlackBerry Jam is the new developer program to help devs do what they do.

12:44PM You bet we are, Alec. Smattering of applause there.

12:44PM Demo video touting BlackBerry Jam, peppy music in the background. "Are you ready to jam?"

12:44PM Alex is telling us how musicians and devs are similar.

12:42PM And that's it for Mike. Now Alec Saunders, VP of Dev Relations is up on stage.

12:42PM "And BBX positions you, the developer, at the forefront."

12:41PM "Our team is very strong, and they're laser focused on one platform -- BBX."

12:40PM Back to you, Mike.

12:40PM "We're going to remove every roadblock" so developers can make money.

12:40PM Dr. Nag's explaining how developers can get their apps discovered and join the BlackBerry gravy train.

12:39PM 13 percent of devs make over $100,000 per year off BlackBerry apps.

12:39PM Dr. Nag is explaining how the socially connected apps now account for 10 percent of app revenues.

12:37PM The good Doctor is telling us how devs make more money with BlackBerry than iOS or Android.

12:37PM That's a lotta dough.

12:36PM 1 billion apps downloaded, 140 million a month, and BB7 phones make 11 times the revenue of BB6 or BB5 phones.

12:36PM App World supports 26 currencies, has 70 million users, 150 million devices, and is in 130 countries.

12:35PM Back to Mike. Talking about BlackBerry being a profitable platform for devs. Dr. Ronjon Nag, VP of App World is now up there.

12:34PM Mike: "I like the sound of that." We do too, Mike. We do too.

12:33PM "You can leave the laptop at home."

12:32PM And, he's doing this while other apps are running in the background. Additionally, you can launch individual applications through Citrix Receiver (not just a full desktop).

12:32PM It's running really quickly, smoothly. Impressive.

12:31PM More demos! Showing Citrix Receiver on a PlayBook, and he launched a Win7 desktop in Texas.

12:31PM Chris is talking how "everyone wants to be mobile" now.

12:30PM Chris Fleck, VP of Mobility Solutions for Citrix is now on stage.

12:30PM It also allows companies to prevent mandatory apps from being deleted by end users.

12:29PM The apps are hosted on your company's BES, and are accessible by company employees around the world.

12:28PM There will be dedicated shelf space for enterprise apps in App World.

12:28PM Now we're talking an enterprise App World.

12:27PM A separate corporate partition is created to ensure that info coming from a BES is separated from the rest of the system.

12:27PM No VPN here, and it's got BES integration.

12:26PM Alan's demoing Balance, which populates a "Work" app folder that has several other applications in there that have corporate security walls.

12:25PM He's talking about BlackBerry Balance, a way for CIOs and employees to both get what they want.

12:24PM He's the VP of Enterprise Product Management and Marketing at RIM.

12:24PM Alan Panezic's coming up to talk about BBX and the enterprise.

12:23PM That's it for Chris and Anders.

12:23PM Chris is talking about using 3D applications to manage data, and he's excited to see what UI's devs come up with.

12:22PM Now Anders is showing a graphical representation of an email inbox. He's stretching the data graph every which way, zooming in and out. Very cool looking, though it's unclear how that would help get through our email each day.

12:20PM So Cascades is built into BBX, and gives devs access to low level APIs and higher level ones for plug and play type development.

12:19PM Got a nice photo application, showing photos fluttering down in a 3D environment. Nice shading, smooth animations, impressive.

12:18PM "We're making it incredibly easy" to achieve the UX we've been seeing with the apps so far today.

12:17PM Now, Chris Smith and Anders Larsson are up on stage to talk about the new Astonishing Cascades native UI framework.

12:17PM Mike says that "with HTML 5, we're intercepting the future." Mike must be a football fan.

12:16PM WebGL running on a PlayBook! Looks really good, we're traveling through a trippy tunnel.

12:15PM Do tell, George.

12:15PM "There's one more thing I'm really excited about."

12:15PM Next up, an enterprise app for tracking company sales.

12:14PM It's HTML 5, and it looks really slick. Video's incorporated in there, it's hardware accelerated, and it shows in the smooth animations.

12:13PM George is showing us a demo of an app built for the Rogers cup tennis tournament.

12:12PM And now, we've got George Staikos, VP of Web Technologies at RIM on stage to talk some more HTML5.

12:10PM The idea is to have the HTML 5 apps run like native apps, so devs can "write once, deploy everywhere."

12:09PM HTML 5 is the next topic of discussion. "It's your bridge" between older versions of BlackBerry and BBX.

12:09PM Tracy's off, now Mike and Dan are up again, telling us there will be plenty more games to come.

12:08PM He's controlling the game using multitouch on the display in addition to onscreen controls.

12:07PM Tracy's giving us a demo of a sidescrolling platformer, looks a bit like a stylized version of Cordy.

12:06PM And now Tracy Erickson from Unity Technology is up on stage.

12:06PM Alex is off, back to you Mike and Dan.

12:05PM Demo time! Laura's looking good, running around a temple, causing explosions and such.

12:05PM They built the game in the C++ environment, and using BlackBerry's dev tools, were able to deploy the game easily.

12:04PM Talking about Laura Croft: Guardian of Light, from Marmalade.

12:03PM President of Marmalade Alex Caccia is now up on stage.

12:02PM Asphalt 6, Raging Thunder (racing games), Let's Golf 2, the Game of Life, etc. etc.

12:02PM Got a slick demo video of various games being played on the PlayBook right now. Very peppy music going on.

12:01PM Absolutely, Dan. When we're not liveblogging, of course.

12:01PM Nice, now were talking gaming. "That's how we spend our time, kill our time, right?"

12:01PM Should devs have their own libraries, BlackBerry will check it out, certify it and work it into the BBX platform.

12:00PM Dan's describing the native environment. There's 100 open source libraries for devs to use.

11:59AM Mike's saying that its certified POSIX, which opens up the platform for developers.

11:59AM The architecture is "safe by design."

11:58AM Mike and Dan are talking the advantages of QNX -- certified secure and reliable kernel.

11:57AM It incorporates enterprise, NOC, and cloud services.

11:57AM BBX is a single, unified platform for the whole world.

11:57AM And here comes Dan Dodge, President of QNX.

11:56AM BBX! It combines the best of BlackBerry and the best of QNX.

11:56AM "The whole company is aligning behind this single platform for developers."

11:56AM Now we're talking PlayBook.

11:55AM 25 million downloads of apps, 200,000 downloads of the foursquare app since the introduction of the BBM social platform.

11:54AM More BB7 handsets to come, "the best BlackBerrys we've ever built."

11:53AM 165 million BlackBerrys sold, over 50 million BBM users now, an 80 percent increase.

11:53AM Today there are 70 million BlackBerry subscribers.

11:52AM "Now, let's get down to business."

11:52AM Including giving all BlackBerry owners $100 worth of apps.

11:52AM He's talking about the recent outage, and how they are trying to make things right for BlackBerry users.

11:51AM Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO is up on stage. He's going to show us some "very exciting things today."

11:51AM Go time!

11:50AM Tom Petty is a wise man. The waiting is, indeed, the hardest part.

11:48AM Shazam is stumped at the moment, but we've got some trance music going on. Very 80s vibe to it.

11:47AM Program set to begin in five minutes!

11:46AM Folks are milling about, still waiting for things to get cranking. But on the plus side, the music's still good.

11:37AM Shazam is telling us that the tunes are coming courtesy of Aquagen, never heard of them before, but we're digging it.

11:35AM Got some spacey music going on, goes nicely with the blue accent lighting around the stage.

11:34AM And, we were just asked to silence our phones. Buckle up!

11:34AM Folks are filing in now, looks like we're gonna have a full house this morning.

11:28AM And we're in! The party's about to start, so get ready folks.