San Jose, California - Fighting against the might of Apple, Google and Microsoft, smartphone pioneer Research in Motion (RIM) revealed new details on Tuesday of its Blackberry 10 platform that many see as the company's last chance of survival.
RIM said it would release its new Blackberry 10 smartphone on six continents early next year. It hopes hat a loyal international base will help offset the declining popularity of the Blackberry in the US, where users strongly prefer phones from Apple or ones that use Google's Android operating system.
Microsoft is also releasing Windows Phone 8 next month in conjunction with partners like Samsung, HTC and Nokia, further stiffening RIM's challenge.
Speaking at the company's BlackberryJam developer conference in San Jose, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins touted the software's ability to multi-task and stressed its suitability for business and enterprise customers.
According to research firm IDC, RIM now controls just 4.8 percent of the world smartphone market. With its market share continuing to dwindle, it faces huge challenges in attracting carriers, developers and customers back to its once dominant platform. Despite this, RIM managed to add subscribers in the recent quarter, and now has 78 million users.
The new Blackberry phones will feature both touchscreen models and ones with a physical keyboard, Heins said, and the company had received positive feedback from carriers to whom it it had shown the device.
“We are making believers out of our partners. We are making believers out of those who had previously written BlackBerry off,” Heins said. - Sapa-dpa