ORLANDO—RIM's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis mounted a spirited defense of his company's strategy today, saying that the BlackBerry-maker is in a "transitional time" and heavily promoting the BlackBerry PlayBook as the leader in a new realm of tablet computing.
In this vision, the new BlackBerry 7 OS seems like a mere pit stop. While Lazaridis made sure to call the BlackBerry Bold 9900 "a special achievement" and "a breakthrough product," it was clear his heart is with RIM's next platform, the OS running on the BlackBerry tablet.
Wireless industry observers should have some faith that RIM can skate to where the puck is going, Lazaridis said (although the hockey metaphor is mine).
"We have been setting the company on this direction to intercept the coming trend … about personal, wireless, mobile computing," he said. "BlackBerry 7 is just the beginning."
Over the next year, RIM intends to merge the BlackBerry and QNX platforms—first by letting BlackBerry apps run on the PlayBook, and then by introducing its much-anticipated QNX "super-phones" early in 2012, Lazaridis said.
RIM's new platforms will leverage RIM's server system, which Lazaridis seemed to think non-IT administrators don't properly appreciate. RIM's servers "allow all these users to communicate with each other in seconds, anywhere in the world, at the lowest cost," he said.
One of his major themes was how RIM works hard to make things appear to be simple—not far from what Apple does, if you think about it. But where Apple focuses on UI, however, RIM appears to focus on network infrastructure. Lazaridis called out RIM's ability to do peer-to-peer communications between phones on different carriers in different countries, and its ability to turn phones into extensions of corporate PBX systems.
Lazaridis shot back at the PlayBook's critics, including this publication, who have hit the tablet for not including native e-mail and contacts apps. The BlackBerry Bridge solution, which requires a BlackBerry to work, is "a unique solution" demanded by corporate IT managers to solve the problem of lost laptops; if you lose a PlayBook that has Bridge, of course, its corporate e-mail won't work away from your BlackBerry. Lazaridis also seemed dismissive of local email for consumers as well.
"We're intercepting cloud services," he said. "We put all that stuff into the [Web] browser—cloud-based email capability and PIM capability." But local email will come as an upgrade, he said.
He acknowledged that the company could have done "a few things … better" but said RIM's strength is in its control over its software platform.
"We control the platform, we control the vision. That's both our opportunity and a potential liability … an apology for being late? I can give that to you, but it's not because we weren't working hard," he said.
There are currently many BlackBerrys, but in the future there may be as few as three at a time. RIM is working to reduce its product line, "to have one platform" and replace multiple devices with a "steady cadence of innovation" and frequent software upgrades, Lazaridis said.
There's one thing BlackBerry will never lose, though: the QWERTY keyboard.
"I can't see myself not typing on a high-quality QWERTY keyboard, and I've seen a lot of kids go back to the QWERTY keyboard," Lazaridis said. As tablets take over the multimedia role played for a while by smartphones, "people are really going to start focusing in on their smartphones for communication," he said.
The new BlackBerry 9900/9930, announced today, doesn't look like a killer consumer phone. But it isn't intended for individual consumers, Lazaridis said. Rather, the 9900 is the long-awaited upgrade for the massive number of BlackBerry 8800, 8830 and 9000 owners in business, government and the military, he said. (The 8830 was known as "Obama's BlackBerry" after the then president-elect was seen with one.)
"Those 8800s, 8830s and Bolds, they've lasted a long time, and [those users] have been waiting for those upgrades," Lazaridis said.