back to article RIM blows on the dice, gets ready for its FINAL THROW

In a matter of hours RIM will reveal the pricing, specification and launch date for the new BlackBerry OS 10 device on which the future of the whole company depends. The phone needs to be perfect but will live or die on RIM's ability to exceed, not merely match, the offerings of the competition. The launch is scheduled for …

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  1. Ian 62

    NFC Lock

    Maybe I've missed a white paper somewhere.

    But how does a NFC lock make anything secure?

    If I nick your phone, I can then open the lock? Or login to your workstation? Just because I've got your phone?

    If I need a passcode or something for the phone, why is that any easier than the password or key in the first place?

    Edu-makate me please someone.

    1. Dr_N

      Re: NFC Lock

      Replacement to badging at work, more than unlocking the front door of your house?

    2. jai

      Re: NFC Lock

      Agreed.

      NFC for phones seems to be like 3D for TV. Not really as useful for the general public as the manufacturers would like to think.

      And in a few years, we'll all wonder what all the fuss was about.

    3. Shagbag

      New Phones

      I don't care much for the Q10 but the black Z10 looks cool. I don't like the white version, though. It looks feminine.

  2. the-it-slayer
    Go

    Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4

    I really hope RIM have hit the nail on the head (rather than the coffin!) for this announcement. There's obviously a market out there still buying and abusing the core RIM services (especially BB Messenger). Some of the business-based ties need to be loosened for consumers but the same integrity has got to be kept if they have a chance of keeping and expanding business customers.

    I'm praying BB10 will be my next upgrade rather than having to stick with a 2nd best iPhone 5 (or 5S/6 whenever it's released).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4

      The Z10 looks nice and ticks a lot of the right boxes.

      It has expandable memory for starters.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4

        ...and a replaceable battery.

        ...and it doesn't phone home with all your private data.

        ...and it's Canadian. I know Canada isn't the most virtuous place on Earth but I increasingly have grave doubts about anything that comes out of the cut-throat maw of Northern California; the more one learns about them the more all the companies seem to be run by dysfunctional [redacted] who would give everybody to the Devil if it meant another yacht (or corporate jet, or whatever). Whereas RIM was founded by guys who gave a lot if it away to encourage engineering and science, and watching the current CEO I don't have the constant feeling I had with Jobs, Ellison, Page, Fiorina, Zuckerberg et al that at any moment a zip might give and a 12 foot lizard emerge. Heins is German after all, and that makes him one of us.

        They may not succeed, but I'm English and I don't want the nice guys to finish last.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4

      Me to.

      I couldn't care less about iPhone or Blackberry. They are both ailing technology companies with a locked in but disgruntled userbase all looking for ways out.

      1. Richard Taylor 2
        Thumb Down

        Re: Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4

        Umm err - is Blacberry a company?

        1. Katie Saucey
          Happy

          Re: Just as buzzed about this announcement as I was with iPhone 4; Umm err

          Actually as of this morning yes, their CEO proclaimed "From this point forward, RIM becomes Blackberry..", they now trade under BBRY.

  3. Richard 120

    Final Throw

    So it's a foregone conclusion then?

  4. RonWheeler

    Premium pricing

    I'd have been a Blackberry user for years if it wasn't for the 'Blackberry Services' charge. As it is I've ended up with a cheapy Nokia QWERTY phone instead so i dopn't have to pay £5/month to pick up my email. If they lose that charge and can make a passable QWERTY phone that isn't silly money and stays charged for a few days at a time, I'm interested.

    1. Kevin Johnston

      Re: Premium pricing

      Not sure how it is elsewhere, but in the UK if you have an iPhone or Android then you pick up the same tab on contract to be able to go get your emails but they label it 'always on internet' or some such.

      You can never accuse the airtime providers of missing a chance to top-up your bill.....

  5. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
    Thumb Up

    very promising

    I got to play with one of these at a pre-launch dog-and-pony show RIM put on for my company. The most important feature (to me at least) is the ability to COMPLETELY segregate personal and corporate apps/data/stuff on the same device and switch back and forth between the two "personas" with a couple swipes on the screen. This completely eliminates the need to carry two phones, mine and the company's. The security and segregation of the personas satisfies the IT Security guys worried about IP theft, etc. After a departing employee walked out with some proprietary information, the CEO ordered IT Security to deny access to webmail, deny write access to optical drives, and install software to scrutinize outbound emails and USB activity. The BB10 appears to allow one to access personal mail and company mail without being able to "cross pollenate." I'm looking forward to a much closer inspection of this device and the accompanying changes to BES, now renamed Blackberry Enterprise SERVICE. (And there are VERY cool announcements coming about that within a few days, I think)

    1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: very promising

      "...ability to COMPLETELY segregate personal and corporate apps/data/stuff on the same device and switch back and forth between the two "personas" with a couple swipes on the screen. "

      I neglected to mention that, unlike Android or Apple, this does NOT involve having to logout/login between each. Login to each ONCE, then switch back and forth. THAT's pretty cool.

  6. DrXym

    One nice feature

    They put two modes into the BB10 phone - personal and business modes that can be flipped between on the fly. Theoretically it allows the business to set up the vpn, email etc. on the device in business mode which stores everything in a protected fs without worrying too much about what crap their idiot employees have installed in personal mode. Conversely the user can personalize the phone without worrying about what their idiot IT admins think of it.

    How it works in practice remains to be seen but it sounds like a neat idea.

  7. Sleepy 3

    Pointless unless...

    You make it backward compatible with existing BES servers, which in classic RIM style, they haven't. So when my CEO comes and asks for email on his shiny new Blackberry, I'll give him a costing and project plan for upgrading the entire back end, which he will laugh at quite a bit before going back to a proper smartphone.

    1. DrXym

      Re: Pointless unless...

      Playbook can connect directly with MS Exchange, IMAP, POP3, Hotmail, Gmail and offers. I expect BB10 would be similar. i.e. you might not need to upgrade anything.

    2. typeo

      Re: Pointless unless...

      They are offering free trade ups to BES 10 licenses against existing CALs for each Blackberry 10 device you purchase.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apps

    So I can't run my iOS apps and I can't run my android apps (perhaps some android apps emulated but most don't work like that).

    So I can't see a reason for the phone.

    1. Darryl

      Re: Apps

      How do run both your iOS and Android apps on one phone currently?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Apps

        Don't need to run both. Either iOS apps or android apps is fine.

  9. Fab De Marco

    Pipping android to the post

    I believe multiple user log ons and been put on the wish list for key lime pie update. Not sure if switching users will be as easy as swipe on swipe off but the concept is there.

    It is a good feature, but the hardware needs to also support multiple sim cards so that this can truly run effectively.

    1. DrXym

      Re: Pipping android to the post

      Android 4.2 has multiple users, each of whom can have their own desktop but I don't know deep it goes, e.g. if apps have per-user storage, what uid services run as etc.

      It's kind of stupid that Linux / BSD are inherently multiuser and both Android and iOS kind of ignored that functionality and now its having to be retrofitted. Android apps especially bad for crapping all sorts of files out onto their storage partition which is often FAT32 so it won't even have group or user id info.

      1. Ian Yates

        Re: Pipping android to the post

        "e.g. if apps have per-user storage"

        They do. Users can't even see what other users have installed, but when a second user "installs" an app from the market, in reality it just permissions them to be able to see the already installed copy (but with a whole new data store).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pipping android to the post

      Nope, it's already available on Android, has been for a while. It's just on tablets and not phones, though- I think Nokia or someone have an old patent that they wanted to avoid.

      A colleague brought in her Nexus 10 for me to play with, yesterday, as it goes. I made an account on there, and installed some of my own apps under it, it all worked really nicely. Once I was done playing, we went back to her account and nuked mine, freeing up space. It was all very slick and useful.

      I suspect BB's talking about something more along the lines of those managed containers that VMWare and co use, where the business stuff is all nicely encrypted, and remotely managed by policies- not sure that Android does all of that yet, at least not the second bit. The idea there being that the IT dept could set expiry on stuff, lock it as needed (well, I am sure you get the idea, I won't insult your intelligence by over-explaining).

  10. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    It's very simple RIM.

    Get the hell out of the handset business, stick with the server stuff and produce iOS, Android and WinPho "secure silo" versions of your client software.

    Ideally while you still have some corporate good will to trade on. - i.e. Before the existing trickle of corporate BYOD policies to services like good.com becomes a flood and renders your entire solution offering an irrelevance. Once that happens, there will be no way back.

    1. Ian Yates

      Re: It's very simple RIM.

      I thought it was irrelevant.

      With IMAP over SSL to the company mail server, we effectively have secure push mail, and we don't have to pay per handset like we did with BBES.

    2. bazza Silver badge

      Re: It's very simple RIM.

      "Get the hell out of the handset business, stick with the server stuff and produce iOS, Android and WinPho "secure silo" versions of your client software."

      If you think that a secure messaging system can be built on top of Android then you need to get your head examined. What's the point of secure message delivery if the platform it is delivered to is as leaky and feeble as a used tea bad? Same goes for iOS and WinPhone to some extent.

      Where as Blackberry 10 (including BlackBerry Balance) seems to have a jolly nice FIPs rating.

      You want corporate BOYD policies? Well, good luck with those on Android, iOS and WinPhone; you'll get a constant stream of gripes from users about not being able to do this, that, the next thing. That is unless one is content to let users expose company data to any number of unknown apps from who knows where?

      At least with BB10 you can have the best of both worlds - corporate lock down and user freedom to Tweet and install whatever they want.

  11. 0laf
    Meh

    Proximity token. Hmmm if it works right I might be interested.

  12. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Hopefully it'll turn out okay

    The current state of affairs needs some shaking up. iOS hasn't really gone anywhere for a couple of years, Android isn't half fiddly when it wants to be and funnels your data to Google, and Windows Phone, well...

  13. wolfetone Silver badge
    Go

    This Is The Day...

    "This is the day, your life must surely change", as sung by The The (and also by the Manic Street Preachers). Quite an apt song for today.

    I really, REALLY, hope this phone kicks arse. I'm sure it will, and I'm excited enough about it to be planning on buying one outright when it's released here in the UK. My last BlackBerry was a Curve 2 years ago, and I switched to Android because I was young and wanted Angry Birds. Since then, I've gone through an Android 2.3 phone, an Android 4.0 phone, and a Windows Phone 7. None of them match the feel of security and quality the BlackBerry gave me. As my last phone met it's death down the toilet, I bought a BlackBerry Torch. Instantly I fell back in love with the brand, and couldn't understand why I ever left.

    Say it quietly, but this could be the iPhone killer we've been waiting for.

  14. DrXym

    RIM now called Blackberry

    Trying to listen to their webcast and having severe issues with their crappy live stream but caught that bit.

    1. W.O.Frobozz

      Re: RIM now called Blackberry

      So no matter how you slice it, Research in Motion is now truly history. It's basically acknowledgement that the name "RIM" had way too much baggage.

      And a name AND stock ticker change...sounds like they're getting ready to put up a "For Sale" sign soon.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Rampant Spaniel
    Happy

    ****ing managers

    I just read elsewhere rim is being renamed blackberry. What an absolute waste of time and money that would have been better spent on bb10. It's not even like they had a bad rep (like NTL) or that their branding was confusing. Rebranding is not cheap, everything from website designs, letterheads, signage, contracts, swipe cards etc, everything has to change or the brand nazis get you and in a big company that isn't cheap! I can half understand a company like NTL rebranding, not that it would fool customers any, but rim needs compelling products not a name change that the vast majority of customers wouldn't notice anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ****ing managers

      So...do think think it's a good idea or not?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Name Game

    Once upon a time I worked for the company formerly known as RIM. That was back when they were making e-mail pagers called the Inter@ctive Pager. They paid Lexicon, the same goobs who came up with the awful name "Pentium" a Canadian metric crapload of money to come up with the name "Blackberry," which had many of us scratching our heads at the time. But like Pentium, the name wasn't really meant to mean anything...only to be trademarkable. They launched the trademark at a staff gathering with the song "Hey Blackberry" by the Black Crowes playing over and over again. Most of us said "meh."

    So they've basically dumped the name of the company, which had meaning and history, for an empty trademark. Oh well good riddance RIM, you were hardly my favourite place of employment.

  17. davidp231
    Meh

    I wonder....

    Have they fixed the issue where it decides to scroll up and down pages while you are filling forms in using their browser (because certain letter keys function as a shortcut to page up/down), and pressing delete whilst in said text box it decides to go back a page instead? (on those with physical keyboards/pads)

    My first BB was the Pearl 8220 (the one with wifi) - wasn't too bad, except for the above problem, and that it decided to reset itself at random - usually during a call. I went through three of them and the all exhibited that problem. Never bothered since.

  18. FanMan
    Headmaster

    Surprise me

    I jacked my last berries because of the inadequate and overpriced apps, the browsing, the fuzzball, the labyrinthine and incomprehensible settings. Actually I did like the real keyboard, and the good value international roaming packages. Fix all that other stuff to Apple standards of GUI and I'll think about it. Maybe.

  19. Robert Grant

    MS should hope this fails...

    ...then swoop in, buy RIM and integrate BBM into WP8. Love me some proper push.

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