-Blackberry maker RIM will soon launch its new BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system on 2 new Smarphones.
I'm Jessica Dolcourt for CNET and I caught up with RIM CEO, Thorsten Heins to ask him about the future of BlackBerry.
-The reason why we build this new platform was not just to build a new Smartphone OS or to build a new tablet OS, right?
I actually truly believe and I see it a lot when I debate this with economists
and market constituents is that we move into the new economic growth curve of wireless.
What is it going to be?
It's going to be mobile computing, right?
Because the devices that you've just seen they have a computing power that is close to a laptop already, right?
So you will move from some sort of a static computing domain towards the computing power is always at your hip.
The idea is not to just put in your Smartphone OS, the idea is to move this company into the leadership position of mobile computing.
What attracts to people to BlackBerry is BBM on a competitive BlackBerry.
So, it's the whole package you have to look at, not just the device, right?
And the way they carry that and that's why we're marketing this together.
So, you know, we are not-- we are not clearly-- We are not just in the low-end, me-too phone game.
We cannot do this.
What I can build is $60 BlackBerry.
That's not where I want to be.
This is not where this company needs to be, right?
We need to be in the aspirational domain, we need to be in the mid-tier, and we need to have services associated to BlackBerry that attract the consumers and make their overall value proposition good.
There's a lot of speculation about when it's really going to be in the shops.
What I can tell you is launch date is January 30th, right?
That's when we show the devices to the press.
And then shortly thereafter, whatever that is, you will see it in the shops.
The sales goals are: We bring a QWERTY device out and we bring a full-touch device out.
We own the QWERTY segment.
Nobody builds physical keypad such as BlackBerry does.
We will own and expand that segment as much as we can.
That's the baseline.
On touch, our representation in the market, let's say U.S. market right now is-- is a minor representation to put it mildly, alright?
So, the full-touch device will be the instrument, which we will be gaining market share back in the U.S.
That's the-- That's the sales game plan.
We haven't built a new platform for just a year.
I mean this platform is gonna take us to the next decade.
So what they get with BlackBerry 10 is a real future-proof platform and a whole new innovative user paradigm that is not this application grid anymore.
That was very intuitive five years ago when it was invented.
It was fantastic, right?
It really caught on with the user.
But now with the BlackBerry Flow and with Peek and with the Hub concept,
it just makes your-- it makes you more productive with less stress, and people will love it.
Think about this in vertical industries.
I'll give you an example, right?
Hospital: Doctor hits the patient's room, NFC hits the bed of the patient, gets all the data from the hotel data repository, knows who the patient is, and he goes to Updates.
Updates in this term means what was the surgery, what happened during the surgery, why was it done, how was it done da da da da.
He goes into Activity and sees, you know, all the medication,
all the recent activities that were performed on the patient.
And that's what we're looking towards as a vision.
That's not gonna happen in the next six months, right?
But this is where the company's moving because the industry is moving there.
This is the room of opportunity.
