It's been a long time coming and today Research In Motion (RIM) will officially reveal its overhauled mobile operating system and the first two BlackBerry 10 handsets, in an effort to reclaim its space in the smartphone market.
The BlackBerry 10 launch event will be taking place simultaneously in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, Johannesburg, Jakarta and Delhi. The New York event will be broadcast live via Webcast from 10am ET (5pm in SA).
SA has been identified as one of RIM's "priority one" markets, and CEO Thorsten Heins has said the country will be among the first to receive the new handsets. When the devices will actually start shipping remains unclear though, and will only be revealed this evening along with the details around pricing.
In a market dominated by Android and Apple's iOS, Heins has said he believes BlackBerry 10 has a "clear shot" at being the number three platform in the market and beating Microsoft's Windows 8.
Heins will unveil a flagship all-touch handset, as well as a model with the traditional qwerty keyboard that has long been a BlackBerry stable. Images of the flagship model, rumoured to be called the Z10, have surfaced online recently along with some of the specifications.
TechRadar claims to have seen one of RIM's training documents for BlackBerry 10, which is said to have listed the specifications of the flagship device. These include a 4.2-inch display, 1 280x768 HD display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, 1 800mAH battery, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, NFC and LTE support.
RIM has been playing its cards close to its chest and executives have only commented that the all-touch device will "tick all the boxes" in terms of expected specifications for a high-end smartphone. Apart from the keyboard, little is known of the other handset expected to be revealed.
Renewed hope
Handsets aside, the new OS alone has been enough to invigorate renewed interest and inspire some optimism for the future of BlackBerry. RIM shares have almost tripled over the past four months on the back of positive reviews.
Key features of the OS include the BlackBerry Hub (which pulls all notifications and conversations into one place), BlackBerry Balance (which separates personal and work data within the device) and a reworked touch-screen keyboard that is said to use heat sensors to learn the user's typing habits and adapt accordingly. BlackBerry 10 also focuses on improving the multitasking experience with "Active frames", which give easy access to the last eight recently opened applications.
RIM has been pushing extremely hard to win over developers with BlackBerry 10 Jams, hackathons and virtual port-a-thons hosted around the world, as well as the distribution of BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices to developers. The last two port-a-thon events saw the submission of over 34 000 apps, and RIM says BlackBerry 10 will be launched with at least 70 000 applications - a number which may be just a tenth of what major competing platforms offer, but which will nevertheless be more apps than any platform has ever had at launch.
The BlackBerry app platform itself has also been given a revamp in lieu of the launch, and has been rebranded as "BlackBerry World" in order to cater for the broader range of content (including music, movies and TV shows) RIM will now be offering its users. RIM announced yesterday it has already signed deals with major music and video partners, including Walt Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, Universal Music and the Warner Music Group.
Huge potential
Reuters quotes head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, Kevin Burden, as saying: "I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new."
Burden believes there is some level of fatigue with the current dominant smartphone platforms, namely Android and iOS, which are both over five years old. "RIM is probably timing it right," he says.
Head of IT infrastructure at Ricoh Canada, Andy Ambrozic, says: "We've had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition. The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security."
Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou also says RIM has a good chance of staging a comeback with BlackBerry 10. "There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform."
Not all analysts are convinced, however, and chief telecoms analyst at Ovum, Jan Dawson, says: "RIM continues to face the twin demons of consumer-driven buying power and a chronic inability to appeal to mature market consumers. There is nothing in what we've seen so far of BB10 that suggests it will conquer the second of these demons, and the first is utterly out of RIM's control."
In SA, BlackBerry commands 75% of the local smartphone market with about 4.5 million users. On Twitter, the BlackBerry10 hashtag was already the top trending topic at time of writing.
*ITWeb will report from the official launch event in Johannesburg this evening. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest news and local launch details.
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