RIM, the Canadian company of famous smartphones BlackBerry, has very big financial problems, but its new CEO has a plan by which he hopes to save the company from bankruptcy. His plan assumes licensing the new BlackBerry 10 operating system to any manufacturer interested in using it to produce a smartphone. The operating system enters the final stages of the development process and Thorsten Heins, CEO of RIM, claims that now the company is analyzing how BlackBerry 10 can be licensed.
The new platform is in the final stages of testing, and RIM is now considering how other companies may be able to use it in a range of products, Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins said today. The BlackBerry 10 lineup was built on software called QNX, which is used in cars, nuclear plants and military drones.
"QNX is already licensed across the automotive sector - we could do that with BB10 if we chose to," Heins, who has begun to carry a BB10 phone for his own use, said in an interview at Bloomberg's headquarters in New York. "The platform can be licensed."
Car manufacturers have already licensed the Blackberry operating system, and now it seems that RIM is only one step away from licensing the system to any other smartphone manufacturer that might be interested. I believe that this measure will save RIM from bankruptcy and help increase the market share of the operating system. Manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola or Sony will have the opportunity to use an operating system highly appreciated by users, but it remains to be seen what conditions RIM will impose for licensing.
Apple could be seriously affected by this move by those from RIM, but everything depends on how the manufacturers will look at the opportunity.
