[UPDATE 12/15/11: RIM announced that the debut of its rebooted Blackberry devices has been delayed until late 2012, and perhaps later. [UPDATE 12/6/11: After losing a trademark dispute, RIM has renamed BBX to BlackBerry 10.] 2012 is the year that BlackBerry will rise phoenixlike from the ashes of Research in Motion’s pile of denial or the year it will join other dead mobile platforms like Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and WebOS. The reason: RIM’s plans to replace the BlackBerry OS with the BBX OS based on the QNX operating system it bought 18 months ago and used as the foundation of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet released last summer. The goal is to have one OS on both smartphones and tablets, as Apple has always done with iOS and Google has achieved this fall with Android 4 “Ice Cream Sandwich.” You can see why this could go either way. The first PlayBook’s hardware and software were subpar, and the ostensible QNX advantage was unclear, so the product quickly fell out of consumers’ interest. BBX OS is based on the QNX-derived PlayBook OS, which does not bode well for the next-generation BlackBerry tablets or smartphones. And the fact that the rebooted BlackBerry platform was quickly delayed to late 2012 suggests that RIM is having trouble reworking QNX for its smartphones. The market was certainly not impressed with the PlayBook. From what I hear, perhaps 250,000 have PlayBooks have been sold (RIM said it shipped 700,000 units as of September 1), compared to 47 million iPads sold to customers per Gartner’s estimates. Sales of the new BlackBerry OS 7 smartphones to individuals have also been low, as customers realized that beyond faster hardware and a better browser, they’re the same old-school BlackBerry. But users don’t want an old-school BlackBerry. As a friend of mine who’s been CIO at several large enterprises and now consults to CIOs said last week, “Most CIOs who I talk to are abandoning them.” However, my conversations with Alec Saunders, RIM’s very new VP for developer relations, hint that maybe this time RIM will deliver a real change, and BBX OS will not be a disappointingly slight update to PlayBook OS — in the way that the HP TouchPad’s WebOS 3.0 was little different than the previous WebOS 2.0 beyond its support of larger tablet screens. Saunders used to be marketing VP at QNX, then left to pursue his own startup (Iotum, which developed the CalliFlower voice services for social networking), and went to RIM this summer as a consultant. On Sept. 28, several developer execs suddenly left RIM in an apparent shakeup, and Saunders became VP of developer relations. He has the advantages of not being too close to the old RIM culture and of coming in with new energy and perspective. Of course, he could also be naive about what can really be done at hidebound RIM. Still, it was the first conversation I’ve had with a RIM executive in years who wasn’t stuck in a obsolete context. Less than a week after RIM promised at its developer conference that the PlayBook 2.0 OS was imminent, Saunders blew the whistle and said it was not yet ready and would not ship until it was — a refreshing if painful dose of reality that bodes well for how BBX is being managed. What is in store for the BlackBerry reboot of 2012 (if that even occurs), when the BlackBerry OS is supposed to be retired and the PlayBook OS made strong? Let me walk you through what it means to developers and users. That way, you can figure out if you want to keep the faith until the reboot arrives or jump to iOS, Android, or Windows Phone 7 instead. Most current BlackBerry apps will not run in BBX RIM says that the new BBX devices will not run most current BlackBerry smartphone apps. The reason: They were coded in Java, and Java apps won’t be supported in BBX. That means most BlackBerry developers — commercial and IT — need to start over. Apps created in RIM’s WebWorks HTML5-oriented development environment will run on BBX devices (both smartphones and tablets), and apps written for the PlayBook will run on BBX devices (both smartphones and tablets, though some adjustments will be needed for the screen differences). You’ll need to move to one of those. Saunders says Java’s time as a RIM IDE is over because modern apps and a modern OS need to be created using current technologies such as HTML5 or QNX, which has some very cool APIs and libraries for apps’ visual presentation layer called Cascades. He’s probably right that this disruption is a necessary one. The sales figures he shares for app sales in RIM’s BlackBerry App World store support the need for that shift: Three of the top-selling apps are PlayBook-only games, which suggests that the BlackBerry app action has already begun declining, given the low PlayBook sales. I certainly hear — from both IT organizations and vendors who sell mobile app development services — that developer activity for the BlackBerry has all but stopped, and a recent study from Appcelerator and IDC confirms a huge drop in developer interest in BlackBerry OS. BlackBerry OS and current BlackBerry smartphones are all but dead Although RIM released new smartphones this fall using the updated BlackBerry OS 7, don’t think there’s a future for this OS. Its tortured history was already a clue: It started life as BlackBerry OS 6.1, was delayed six months, and finally got renamed to a whole number to make it look like a big deal, which it isn’t. RIM now clearly says that these smartphones will not be upgradable to BBX; if you want a BlackBerry smartphone that will support the reboot, wait for the BBX reboot. BlackBerry OS 7 and the smartphones that run it are an essentially end-of-life platform, the last in the old-school BlackBerry lineup. Saunders said that RIM will still sell the BlackBerry OS 7 devices in poor nations whose citizens can’t afford the higher-spec hardware required to run BBX (such as having a dual-core processor), but only developers targeting these emerging markets could benefit from that continued presence. For the rest of us, the old BlackBerry is being retired. BBX to compete with iOS and Android, but with a social networking advantage RIM has bopped around in the last several years trying to sell high security for fuddy-duddy CIOs and security pros on one hand and as a cool gaming, music, and youth-oriented social platform on the other. I couldn’t tell what RIM wanted to be, and in any event, it wasn’t succeeeding with the youth, despite its popularity with British hooligan rioters. I asked Saunders about it. His answer boiled down to wanting to be a general-purpose mobile OS for games, communications, productivity, media, and creativity. RIM wants to compete directly with iOS and Android. That’s a tall order given RIM’s history and its consistent clinging to its secure-messaging history. The PlayBook failed as such an OS and as a secure messaging device, so maybe I’m wrong to think that BBX could be just a fancy messaging device that skimps on the apps capabilities as PlayBook OS now does. Maybe the first PlayBook OS is the last chapter of the ancien regime, and BBX is the shining city on a hill. What caught my attention in Saunders’s description of where BBX is aimed was his focus on BBM Connect, the social technology based on the very popular BlackBerry Messenger service. BBM Connect extends the social conversation into other areas, such as sharing, tagging, and commenting on photos or music. The idea is to allow developers to create social apps in domains other than instant messaging. Of course, that’s the concept behind Microsoft’s spectacular Kin failure and to a lesser extent behind its current Windows Phone 7. Still, RIM has seen real traction with BBM Connect: 200 BBM Connect apps account for 10 percent of all BlackBerry World sales, Saunders tells me, out of about 34,000 BlackBerry apps. There’s a there there. The optimist in me says BBX could be as universally useful as iOS and Android with the extra flair of BBM Connect to stand out. The pessimist in me says BBX could end up being more BlackBerry-as-secure-messenger, but with a prettier face — lipstick on a pig. The PlayBook is the bellwether When BBX becomes available some time in 2012 — RIM said February 2011 for tablets a few weeks back, but now won’t give an estimated arrival date — it will start on the PlayBook tablet before it spreads to smartphones (with the addition of features related to making phone calls and sending SMS messages). The PlayBook should give a strong indication as to whether BBX is an OS worth adopting for the current tablets and the future smartphones. If BBX on tablets is not great, it’s an easy call for users and developers alike to take RIM off their lists and switch to an alternative platform. After all, you’ll know the BBX smartphones won’t be great, either. About the only buyers who would stick with BlackBerry under such circumstances are those who really need the level of security that BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) provides — a small percentage of consumers. Of course, buyers who require that level of security must make sure that BES works with the BBX BlackBerry smartphones and tablets — it did not work with the first PlayBook. RIM says BES will play nice with BBX devices, but given the company’s recent history of unfulfilled promises, I suggest you wait till you know for sure. If BBX is great or even just on par with iOS and Android, users, developers, and IT should prepare to add it to their list of accepted mobile platforms. If that were to happen, RIM’s fortunes could be bright again, even if it never regains market dominance. The tough call is what to do in the meantime. We’re months away from a BBX tablet, and maybe as much as a year away from a BBX smartphone. Buying a current BlackBerry smartphone makes no sense unless you need BES’s high level of security — today’s BlackBerrys are dead-end devices. Most corporate users should get an iPhone instead, as it’s the next most secure smartphone available. When they become available, Android 4 smartphones would be a valid option, as their security is not far behind the iPhone’s — but avoid the insecure Android 2.x smartphones other than Motorola Mobility’s special line of business-capable Android smartphones. The current PlayBook model promises to run BBX, but today’s PlayBook is not that useful, so there’s no reason to get one now. An iPad 2 is the best tablet out there, and it’s well accepted by enterprises. An Android 3 “Honeycomb” tablet is also an option, though not as secure as an iPad. In other words, if you are a BlackBerry fan and want to keep the faith, you’ll need to bide your time — and live with your current BlackBerry for now. Unfortunately, for users, a BlackBerry investment today is a sure loser. But for developers, it’s an open question with an answer that won’t be known until BBX — I mean, BlackBerry 10 — ships. If I were a developer, I would hedge my bets and also develop for iOS and Android, as those two OSes are clearly going to be around a while, and in big numbers. A revitalized BlackBerry would just add icing to those cakes. Technology IndustrySmall and Medium Business