The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is promising a speedier device, a
superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal
identities separate on the same phone. It's the fruit of a crucial,
long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company.
Thorsten Heins, chief
executive of Research In Motion Ltd., will show off the first phone with
the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday. A marketing
campaign that includes a Super Bowl ad will accompany the
long-anticipated debut. Repeated delays have left the once-pioneering
BlackBerry an afterthought in the shadow of Apple's trend-setting iPhone
and Google's Android-driven devices.
Now, there's some optimism.
Previews of the software have gotten favorable reviews on blogs.
Financial analysts are starting to see some slight room for a comeback.
RIM's stock has nearly tripled to $16.18 from a nine-year low in
September, though it's still nearly 90 percent below its 2008 peak of
$147.
Most analysts consider a BlackBerry 10 success to be crucial for the company's long-term viability.
"The
old models are becoming obsolete quickly," BGC Financial analyst Colin
Gillis said. "There is still a big user base but it's going to rotate
off. The question is: Where do they rotate to?"
The BlackBerry,
pioneered in 1999, has been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go
business people. Corporate information-technology managers like the
phones because they're relatively secure and easy to manage. Many
employees loved them because of physical keyboards that were easier to
type on than the touch-screen iPhone. President Barack Obama couldn't
bear to part with it when he took office. Oprah Winfrey declared it one
of her "favorite things." People got so addicted that the device was
nicknamed "the CrackBerry."
The BlackBerry began to cross over to
consumers. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, it showed that phones
can do much more than email and phone calls. They can play games, music
and movies. Android came along to offer even more choices. Though IT
managers still love BlackBerrys, employees were bringing their own
devices to the workplace - a trend Heins acknowledged RIM was slow to
adapt to.
Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient.
Even as
BlackBerry sales continued to grow in many parts of the world, many
BlackBerry users in North America switched to iPhones and Android
devices. BlackBerry's worldwide subscriber based peaked at 80 million in
the quarter that ended Sept. 1, before dropping to 79 million in the
most-recent quarter. In the U.S., according to research firm IDC,
shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the market
in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012. Most phones in use today are either
iPhones or Android devices.
RIM promised a new system to catch up,
using technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software
Systems. RIM initially said BlackBerry 10 would come by early 2012, but
then the company changed that to late 2012. A few months later, that
date was pushed further, to early 2013, missing the lucrative holiday
season. The holdup helped wipe out more than $70 billion in shareholder
wealth and 5,000 jobs.
Although executives have been providing a
glimpse at some of BlackBerry 10's new features for months, Heins will
finally showcase a complete system at Wednesday's event. Devices will go
on sale soon after that. The exact date and prices are expected
Wednesday.
RIM redesigned the system to embrace the multimedia, apps and touch-screen experience prevalent today.
"Historically
there have been areas that have not been our strongest points," Rick
Costanzo, RIM's executive vice president of global sales, said in an
interview. "Not only have we caught up, but we may even be better than
some of the competition now."
Costanzo said "no one else can touch" what RIM's new system offers.
The
new operating system promises better multitasking than either the
iPhone or Android. Simply swipe a finger across the phone's display
screen to switch to another program.
All emails and notifications
from such applications as Twitter and Facebook go to the BlackBerry Hub,
a nerve center accessible with a finger swipe even if you have another
application open. One can peek into it and open an email, or return to
the previous application without opening the email.
"You are not
going in and out of applications; you're flowing through applications
with one simple gesture of your finger," Costanzo said. "You can leave
applications running. You can effortlessly flow between them. So that's
completely unique to us."
That said, multitasking will still be
limited. If you're watching a video, it will still run while you check
for email. But it will pause if you decide to open an email and resume
when you are done.
The BlackBerry's touch-screen keyboard promises
to learn a user's writing style and suggest words and phrases to
complete, going beyond typo corrections offered by rivals. See the one
you want, and flick it up to the message area. Costanzo said that
"BlackBerry offers the best keyboard, period."
Gus Papageorgiou, a
Scotiabank financial analyst who has tried it out, agreed with that
assessment and said the keyboard even learns and adjusts to your thumb
placements.
The first BlackBerry 10 phone will have only a touch
screen. RIM has said it will release a version with a physical keyboard
soon after that. That's an area RIM has excelled at, and it's one reason
many BlackBerry users have remained loyal despite temptations to
switch.
Another distinguishing feature will be the BlackBerry
Balance, which allows two personas on the same device. Businesses can
keep their data secure without forcing employees to get a second device
for personal use. For instance, IT managers can prevent personal apps
from running inside corporate firewalls, but those managers won't have
access to personal data on the device.
With Balance, "you can just
switch from work to personal mode," Papageorgiou said. "I think that is
something that will attract a lot of people."
RIM is also
claiming that the BlackBerry 10's browser will be speedy, even faster
than browsers for laptop and desktop computers. According to
Papageorgiou, early, independent tests between the BlackBerry 10 and the
iPhone support that claim.
Regardless of BlackBerry 10's
advances, though, the new system will face a key shortcoming. It won't
have as many apps written by outside companies and individuals as the
iPhone and Android. RIM has said it plans to launch BlackBerry 10 with
more than 70,000 apps, including those developed for RIM's PlayBook
tablet, first released in 2011. Even so, that's just a tenth of what the
iPhone and Android offer. Papageorgiou said the initial group will
include the most popular ones such as Twitter and Facebook. But RIM will
have to persuade others to make a BlackBerry version, when they are
already struggling to keep up with both the iPhone and Android.
Like
many analysts, Papageorgiou recently upgraded RIM's stock, but
cautioned that longtime BlackBerry users will have to get used to a
whole new operating system.
He said RIM can be successful if about
a third of current subscribers upgrade and if the company can get 4
million new users overseas, especially in countries where the BlackBerry
has remained popular. IDC said smartphone shipments grew 44 percent in
2012. If those trends continue, it will be possible for the BlackBerry
to grow even if iPhone and Android users don't switch.
"This
doesn't have to be the best smartphone on the planet to be a success for
RIM," he said. "I think the big question though is, if it fails, is it
just too late? Are the other two ecosystems just so advanced that no one
can catch up? That's a big risk."