RIM officials held a press session in San Francisco Monday to tout the tenth anniversary of the BlackBerry as well as promote the company's wireless communications solutions for enterprises of varying sizes. Asked how BlackBerry stacks up against iPhone, Alan Panezic, vice president of the RIM platform product management group, emphasized business benefits for a corporate audience, where security, usability and connecting to corporate assets are paramount.

[ While RIM is promoting its signature smartphone, the company is also ]

"From our perspective, we really see [BlackBerry] as head and shoulders above anything that's out there in the marketplace," said Panezic, who later noted BlackBerry also can be used as a consumer-oriented device. The BlackBerry Storm model could be regarded as the functional equivalent of the iPhone, although it was not designed with that intention, said David Heit, director of software product management at RIM.

 As far as Android, Panezic said, "To be quite to be quite honest, it's a wait-and-see attitude. It's an open device-centric platform." He also emphasized BlackBerry as offering a platform with behind-the-firewall capabilities and push technology.

The BlackBerry has expanded beyond its roots as a wireless tool to read e-mail, now offering such capabilities as business collaboration like social networking and the sharing of data and documents, Panezic said. "That's an example of things that 10 years ago were quite frankly a dream," he said.