Metro Weekly

RIM promises “the most comprehensive launch” in the mobile industry’s history with Blackberry 10

Blackberry logo

This makes it the most comprehensive launch in mobile history. There has never been a platform launching with that many carriers.”

Frank Boulben, RIM’s Chief Marketing Officer, to ABC World News regarding Wednesday’s anticipated launch of the Blackberry 10, the completely new version of the company’s software, written from the ground up.

Blackberry hopes to regain market share with this release (as of November 2012, it only had 1.6 percent of the American smartphone market compared with the iPhone’s 48.1 percent and Android’s 46 percent), and claims to have aligned with over 150 wireless carriers around the world. Boulben further told ABC that RIM’s software is “highly differentiated” in several areas including a messaging hub, a predictive touch keyboard, a feature that keeps work and personal usage separate. According to Boulben, the BlackBerry World store will launch with 70,000 new apps — none of which will run on the older handsets and still a far cry from the plethora of apps offered by Apple and Android.

RIM’s BlackBerry 10 event starts at 10 a.m. EST on Jan. 30, 2013.

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