Over the past week the Karta Mobile team has been busy gleaning deeper insight into the BlackBerry platform directly from the people in RIM themselves at the second annual BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco, California.

The conference has been chock full of important announcements for the BlackBerry developer community and has been covered all across the blogosphere (here, here and here).  It suffices to say that we are all very excited to harness a lot of the innovation, new technologies and device APIs to make Viira and even better, more engaging and comprehensive GTD system for BlackBerry smartphones.

RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie Addressing BlackBerry Developers

We took notes on new technologies, best practices and ideas and even engaged in a series of round table discussions with key RIM decision makers on how to best grow the app ecosystem on the BlackBerry. It felt great knowing that our gripes, recommendations and two cents are actually making an impact on the way the BlackBerry platform is evolving.

Yes, unlike other fruit companies, RIM listens.

All-in-all, it has been a spectacular event and we are all coming back energized and thrilled about what the future of the BlackBerry platform holds in store for everyone - for developers and consumers alike.

Today has been a day of big announcements in the BlackBerry world. On the first day of the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference, RIM announced a slew of new technologies, APIs and partnerships designed to make even richer and more powerful applications a possibility on the BlackBerry platform.

Against this backdrop, we are very excited to be making our own big announcement: the public availabiity of Viira 2.0. Viira 2.0 contains many game-changing improvements that we are delighted to be bringing to you because we know that they will help you do even more with your BlackBerry and help you get things done in your day-to-day life.

Without further ado, here are the key new features in Viira 2.0:

• Next Actions. You can select the next task that needs addressing for any given project, context, in Tasks View and even for a particular day. Simply use the VolumeUp key to promote any of tasks for the project, context or day to the top position
• Email Tasks. Create a task from incoming messages so that you never forget to reply to important emails. Instantly add it to your trusted GTD system by classifying it by project, context or day. The email task will contain an embedded preview of the email to remind you what the email was all about.
• Priorities. Organize the task order for any project, context and day. Use the VolumeUp and VolumeDown key to specify which tasks come ahead of others.
• Overdue Tasks Display. A new area in the Day View displays in red tasks from previous days that have not been completed yet.
• Multiple Calendar Support. A unique, Viira-only feature is the inclusion of appointments to your GTD organizational system. Viira 2.0 seamlessly integrates with all calendar accounts on your BlackBerry (BlackBerries maintain one calendar for each configured email address) and appointments from all calendars will appear in your Day View.

We always provide a free trial, and Viira 2.0 is not an exception. For those of you who purchased Viira 1.x, Viira 2.0 will optionally import your Viira 1.x data when launched for the first time as well.

Buyers of the previous version also get special upgrade pricing - a tradition that we will continue with future releases. Buyers of Viira 1.x can buy an upgrade for $19.99.

So give Viira 2.0 a try and see for yourself what it can bring to your day-to-day life!