Big order

BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion Ltd., said it has received an order for 1 million of its new smartphones, marking the largest ever single purchase in the company’s history.

The Canadian company is relying on the redesigned BlackBerry Z10 and Q10, unveiled in January, to fuel a comeback. The pioneering brand lost its cachet not long after Apple’s 2007 release of the iPhone, which reset consumers’ expectations for what a smartphone should do.

Getting together?

Google has announced an executive change that could signal some coming convergence for its Android mobile operating system and Chrome operating system for computers and the Web.

Andy Rubin, who had been senior vice president in charge of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, has been replaced by Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome.

As smartphones perform more computer and Web functions, users have questioned the separate operating systems.

Galactic competition

Samsung Electronics is going to the Big Apple to reveal its next big challenge to Apple: a successor to its top-selling Galaxy S III smartphone.

The Korean company has rented New York’s Radio City Music Hall for an event Thursday evening. The company has hinted that it will reveal the Galaxy S IV phone.

Judging by the announcement of the S III last May, this means the new phone will be available in stores in a month or two.

It’s not known what the new phone will look like or how it will differ from its predecessor, but there’s speculation that Samsung will again increase the screen size.

Sugar surplus

The U.S. Department of Agriculture hasn’t decided how to reduce the country’s sugar surplus, said spokesman Justin DeJong.

He was responding to a report that the government is considering the purchase of 400,000 tons of sugar to prop up falling domestic prices and to stave off defaults by processors on $862 million in loans taken out under a government price support program.

Oil propels imports

Prices paid by U.S. importers rose in February for the second straight month, pushed up by higher oil prices.

The Labor Department said import prices rose 1.1 percent in February after a 0.6 percent gain the previous month. Fuel imports jumped 4.9 percent. Excluding fuel, import prices were flat.

Low import costs have helped hold down U.S. inflation. Even with the last two months of increases in oil costs, import prices have fallen 0.3 percent in the 12 months ending in February. They haven’t recorded a year-over-year increase since last April.