The Canadian phone maker is set to launch its new BB 10 operating system later on Wednesday, almost a decade after taking the world of smartphones by storm in 2003. That glory, unfortunately, was short-lived. As users moved away from handsets with keypads to touchscreen phones, BlackBerry found itself on the back foot. Its attempts to lure the touchscreen users with the BlackBerry Storm and Torch models didn't succeed while Apple's iPhone and devices powered by Google's Android system started dominating the smartphone market.
The BB 10 operating system has been open to developers for a while now. "The platform is very similar to the Android, which is good," says a developer who does not want to be named as he develops applications for multiple platforms and has started working on the BB 10 as well. He says that, in order to lure developers, the company is providing devices and assuring a certain amount to them to put paid apps on the BlackBerry market.
Still, analysts are sceptical. "A lot depends on the handset launch next week and the next few quarters of sales," says Phillip Redman, Vice President at Gartner Research in a recent blog.
"BlackBerry 10 should lead to a short-term boost in performance, as many of its subscribers upgrade to the latest operating system in 2013," writes Jan Dawson, an analyst at research firm Ovum. "But this boost will be short-lived, and will only temporarily offset the underlying negative trends affecting RIM's performance."
It will take a lot more than attracting app developers for RIM to stop its slide. The company will have to lure phone buyers at a time when about three-fourths of the smartphone market is taken by Android, with Apple holding most of the rest. According to Gartner, RIM's market share in the third quarter of 2012 dropped to 5.3 per cent from 11 per cent a year earlier.
The year to come will perhaps be the biggest transition period for RIM as it fights to survive. The saving grace is that BlackBerry is still deeply entrenched in the enterprise segment, and might just be able to pull up. The Playbook, BlackBerry's tablet, wasn't able to do that. The next few hours and days could determine if the new operating system is able to revive the company's fortunes.
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