There was big news from Research In Motion yesterday as the smartphone giant finally launched the two much awaited upgrades to its BlackBerry Torch handset. The newly released models are more powerful than the first edition Torch and signify RIM’s attempts to buy itself more time before it can get into a position to introduce its next generation mobile operating system for the BlackBerry line of smartphones and the PlayBook tablet.
The two new phones were released alongside an upgrade for the company’s popular BlackBerry Bold, and together RIM considers this to be its biggest ever global launch as they desperately try to regain the market share that it has lost to the Apple iPhone and devices running on Google Android in the last couple of years. The event drew positive response from investors as the Canadian company’s stock prices went up by 3%.
Tony Cripps, an Ovum analyst, said that these new smartphones may well be the most important releases in the history of RIM, especially in the backdrop of the recent staff cuts, slowdown in shipments and extensive attacks on the company’s style of management coming from experts and investors. All the three phones which were launched yesterday are based on the latest version of the BlackBerry OS, 7, and feature improvements in their screen displays as well as processors. They run on Qualcomm’s 1.2 GHz processors, which are the most powerful ever to be used in the BlackBerry range. RIM has announced that all three will be launched by service providers globally before the end of this month.
The web browser on the BlackBerry OS 7 has been reported to be up to 40% faster than the one featured in the last version of the platform. However, as Mike Lazaridis, the co-CEO of RIM, has already announced the launch of new “superphones” next year which will run on the new QNX platform, analysts have already set their sights beyond the recent launch. Phone shipments of RIM had fallen to 13.2 million during the last quarter, the first time the shipments went down compared to the first quarter since 2007, as the company delayed launching these phones to August.
One of the new Torch models features the looks of the first Torch, whereas the other model is RIM’s first foray into touchscreen only phones since its Storm line ended in a failure. The upgraded Bold will come with the NFC technology as RIM takes its first step towards wireless payment services.
