Industry analysts who had been expecting to see BlackBerry 10 launched on January 30th at 9:00am have been disappointed as RIM has delayed the launch of their new phones till ten o’clock. Initial reaction on the stock market was muted, but many have warned that “the true fallout from this announcement has yet to be seen”.
BlackBerry maker RIM (RIMM) has been working on their new BlackBerry 10 operating system (their first with a touch screen) in order to compete with Apple’s iPhone, and Samsung’s Galaxy S III phone. While many have thought that RIM should follow HP and Dell’s move into the Enterprise tech industry, the company under CEO Thorsten Heins seems to still be committed to releasing phones.
Still most analysts see this delay as devastating to the BlackBerry maker. “This gives Microsoft additional time to claim their place as the number three smartphone maker” noted one watcher of the stock. “There is no way of knowing how many CIO’s will give up on the platform during this lost hour.”
Others warned that BlackBerry 10, may still see more delays. “For all we know, once everyone arrives for the press conference, they may not actually take to the stage until five minutes after the hour”.