Research In Motion is planning to transition its BlackBerry smartphones to the Neutrino QNX operating system it acquired last April, according to media reports. Although the BlackBerry maker has not officially confirmed this, RIM Vice President Alan Panezic said it would be a “logical conclusion” and Vice President Alan Brenner said there was no reason “to rule it out,” according to web site Intomobile.
It’s hardly surprising that RIM has been thinking about taking advantage of some long-term synergies based on the OS expertise in the separate BlackBerry and QNX software-engineering teams. Apple made major changes in the microprocessor and OS platforms for its Mac line at different times and has been successful, noted Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC.
“At some point every technology vendor has to make a hard decision as to whether to carry on with what they have or to reboot with a new strategy,” Hilwa said. “The trick is how to manage such transitions.”
Skipping a Beat
The key for RIM is coming up with a transition strategy that includes the tools, simplified or automated app migrations, and common APIs for the old and the new platforms. “In this case, it looks like RIM’s focus on its WebWorks platform to shift development on BlackBerry phones to the web is one of those strategies,” Hilwa said.
The good news for RIM is that its mobile software is tied to hardware that becomes obsolete more quickly than standard computer gear. So five years from now there will be almost no devices left running BlackBerry OS 6, which is what makes such a transition possible for the BlackBerry maker, Hilwa said.
“The bad news is that things move very fast in mobile, and skipping a beat may slow down growth rates and give room for competitors to…