RIM's Touching New BlackBerry Plans

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) is said to be preparing a whole new "9000-series" operating system and device platform to take on Apple Inc., Google, and others in 2008.

The 9000-series is described by Carmi Levy, an analyst at AR Communications Inc. , as "the future of the BlackBerry franchise," a complete breakaway from the device's business roots.

Dan Jones of the wireless news site Unstrung, has been told by clued-in analyst Carmi Levy that he expects a BlackBerry 9000 series with iPhone-like touchscreen functionality to be released in the first quarter of 2008. "They were originally shooting for the second half of 2007," he notes.

Levy takes this as an indication that BlackBerry is diverging even more significantly from its once top-down, enterprise-specific roots.

"The 9000 is supposed to be a touch-screen device, very similar in form factor to the iPhone," Levy tells Jones. "Which means that it is not an enterprise-friendly device."

"The 9000 series will break from the traditional half-screen, half-keyboard look of the BlackBerry," Jones writes. The handsets will also incorporate an upgraded multimedia system, along with the standard push email capabilities. Better MP3 and video capabilities are crucial if RIM is to take on Apple, Google, and others."

The touch-screen devices, however, won't mean the end of the line for the 8000 series, because businesses will still need devices with proper QWERTY keyboards. "There will be incremental updates. They won't disappear," Levy says.