Research in Motion will be releasing seven new Blackberry smartphones over the next few months running the company’s next-gen operating system – but not QNX.
Speaking to shareholders at RIM’s annual meeting in Canada, co-chief executive Jim Balsillie confirmed the new handsets, while co-chief executive chairman Mike Lazaridis described the new handsets as the ‘largest product rollout in its history.’
However the handsets won’t be running the company’s QNX operating system, instead it will be a new version of it’s existing OS, Blackberry 7 OS.
The first handset is likely to be the Blackberry 9900, with a 1.2GHz processor and NFC chip which is due to launch in the UK soon, with a white version due in October.
According to Reuters, the company is also releasing a version of it’s seven-inch tablet the Blackberry Playbook with 3G in September, so you don’t have to tether the Playbook any more, although there’s no news on when this will come to the UK.
The AGM comes at a time when RIM’s share price has fallen, as the company faces a smartphone market which is increasingly competitive as Apple continues to grow and increasingly Android. Although stats released by RIM today, show that the company was the number one smartphone vendor in the UK in May, with its Blackberry Curve 8520 being the best selling prepay phone. With 45 million Blackberry Messenger uses rising by 40%
Although the 9900 looks like a slick handset, what we really want to see is QNX on a smartphone. Although we had a few criticisms of the Playbook, it’s certainly one of the best tablet OS’s out there, the thought of having that slickness and speed on a smartphone is mouthwatering.
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