Research in Motion needs to have a good launch of its Blackberry 10 smartphone, and its corresponding OS, in order to stay competitive in the industry. Part of having a successful launch is to gain the support of app developers.
This week, Bloomberg reported that RIM will begin that process by giving prototypes of their first Blackberry 10 smartphones to developers in early May. The phones will be given out as part of RIM"s BlackBerry Jam event. The event will be held on May 1-3 as part of the larger BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida.
While the prototype phones will help developers in the creation of their future Blackberry 10 apps, they will be very different compared to the final version of the product when it is released sometime later in 2012. Alec Saunders, RIM’s vice-president for developer relations, states:
The experience on this device from a consumer’s perspective is not in any way indicative of what the final experience on BlackBerry 10 will be like. We are holding that back to create the interest around that at launch time.
RIM needs for Blackberry 10 to be a success as the once mighty smartphone brand is losing ground to rivals like Apple"s iPhone and Android-based devices. Just this week it was revealed that Blackberry sales in RIM"s home country of Canada have now fallen to the number two position behind the iPhone.