Bits Blog: RIM Shows Off New BlackBerry Phones, but Gives No Release Date

Eric Risberg/Associated Press Thorsten Heins, the president and chief executive of RIM, did not offer a specific date for the coming line of BlackBerry 10 phones.

OTTAWA — Research in Motion said on Tuesday that its coming line of BlackBerry 10 phones would include the company’s popular BlackBerry Messenger service, a feature still absent on its tablet computers.

But during his presentation to software developers in San Jose, Calf., Thorsten Heins, the president and chief executive of RIM, still did not offer a specific date for what he called “our most important launch ever.” Mr. Heins said, however, that the new phones, which have been delayed twice, will be on sale at some point early next year.

At the meeting, the company displayed the second version of a prototype BlackBerry 10 phone. Outwardly, it appeared little different from a prototype given to developers in May. But the software on the phone demonstrated on Thursday looked much more refined and advanced. In addition to BlackBerry Messenger, it included apps for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Foursquare, which were integrated with the phone’s calendar, datebook and e-mail apps.

RIM also showed how corporations and governments would be able to segregate their data and app from users’ personal selections and information.

The software linking all the features, Mr. Heins said, will allow users to perform a variety of tasks from a single screen without switching applications.

Although creating new phones and a new operating system has clearly been a struggle for the company, Mr. Heins made no effort to temper expectations.

“We are convinced that the BlackBerry 10 platform will shape the next 10 years as profoundly and significantly as BlackBerry shaped the last 10 years,” he said. Recent demonstrations of the prototype to people at telephone companies and elsewhere, he said, have made “believers out of those who had previously written BlackBerry off.”

Still, the success of the new phones remains to be seen. On Thursday, Mr. Heins will have to face a much less cheery group, RIM’s investors, when he announces the company’s second-quarter results. A Bloomberg survey of 35 analysts found that they expected the company to report that earnings fell 41 percent from the same period last year.

Leading up to Tuesday, some analysts speculated that the total number of BlackBerry users had not grown or had even declined during the quarter, which would have been a first for the company. But Mr. Heins said RIM had counted 80 million BlackBerry users during the quarter, up from 78 million the last time the company reported.

Article source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/rim-shows-off-new-blackberry-10-phones-but-gives-no-firm-release-date/?partner=rss&emc=rss