RIM CEO Details BlackBerry "Super Phone" Plans

CES 2011

LAS VEGAS—RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis further confirmed plans for QNX-powered BlackBerry "super phones" in an interview at CES, where he said the BlackBerry maker is skating not to where the puck is today, but to where the puck is going to be tomorrow.

Okay, yeah, I had to start with a hockey metaphor for the iconic Canadian tech firm. But RIM has been getting a lot of ragging in the press of late for not having super-phones - high-end, multimedia devices to compete with Apple's iPhone or Samsung's Galaxy S.

Lazaridis told me that the phones are coming, that they'll be based on dual-core processors with RIM's new QNX OS, and that the interface will look a lot like a shrunken-down PlayBook tablet (which, in turn, actually looks a lot like BlackBerry 6.) Future QNX devices also may eventually run existing BlackBerry Java apps as well, Lazaridis said, ensuring a smooth transition between the platforms.


Here's the thing, though: RIM isn't in a hurry. Lazaridis emphasized that RIM has a long-term plan for the next ten years, which may be why they don't seem to feel like they're under the gun to deliver their super-phone tomorrow. First they made RIM a global business, now they're delivering the PlayBook, and super phones are on the to-do list, he said.

But the hardware just isn't there yet to do super-phones the way RIM wants to. Lazaridis said super-phones will have to have dual-core processors, and the current dual-core processor lineup can't provide the "battery life, size, weight, thickness and cost" he wants to put in the next-generation handhelds. Furthermore, he doesn't see the point in 4G handhelds - yet - although RIM announced a 4G WiMAX version of the PlayBook with Sprint last night.

Lazaridis is a very smart guy, so I'm going to turn the story over to him. Here's part of our conversation as a Q&A where he explains where RIM is going in the next few years.

PCMAG.com: You guys have right now no intentions, or no stated intentions, to launch 4G BlackBerries.

Mike Lazaridis: We haven't said anything about 4G PlayBooks until tonight!

Q: You guys and especially you have been about using bandwidth efficiently. The handheld BlackBerry can make the most of limited networks; it doesn't necessarily need 4G in that form factor. Maybe [the PlayBook] is the form factor for 4G.

A: That's right, that's exactly right. So from a communications point of view BlackBerry is unsurpassed around the world. You've seen our sales, you've seen our growth. It's a very successful global business. 500 carriers around the word, 170 countries ... Originally our corporate customers were asking us, can you give us a larger BlackBerry? They wanted something that could actually browse the Web. They could view PDFs, PowerPoints, Word documents. They could view pictures, videos. They want to be able to plug it right into their projectors, right into their plasma screens.

So what we did was we decided we had enough horsepower in the QNX operating environment to intercept dual core processors. Because that's what people were expecting. Most desktop PCs are all dual core. But we wanted to do it in an ultra mobile. So we were intercepting the coming mobile computing market, whereas BlackBerry was the mobile communications market.

Q: People are worried that, especially in North America the BlackBerry handhelds are essentially becoming QMDs [texting phones]. And that you have a gap at the upper end where the multimedia handhelds are living. A lot of people are saying, as the existing BlackBerries become more QMDs - the 8520 is the most popular BlackBerry in the world - how do you address that multimedia handheld market?

A: Ironically I've never hidden this. I've said that we are working on multicore smartphones, and QNX is our multicore platform for those devices. Those devices are both in smartphone and in tablet form.

Q: We're seeing a lot of multicore smartphones this week. Do you think the platform is ready yet for you guys to jump in, or is there a reason that the existing multicore platform isn't appropriate for a BlackBerry handheld?

A: No, I think a multicore platform is currently perfect for tablets.

Q: Why is it not perfect for handhelds?

A: Battery life, size, weight, thickness, cost.

Q: When you take this OS from a tablet to a handheld, is there going to be a difference in interface metaphors? Because you interact with a bigger screen differently.

A: When you look at this, you're seeing an awful lot of BlackBerry 6. if you notice the big difference here, it's that we don't clutter the screen with anything other than the app. The whole point is that we give you a chromeless app. So if you want to see the alert bar, pull it down to look at it.

Q: So you could just squint and see [the PlayBook] in a smaller form?

A: Yeah!

Q: Look at the left half of the Playbook screen, and there's a QNX handheld.

A: Exactly! We're not denying it. But I think people, the mistake they're making is thinking it's just one or the other. And I'm trying to tell them there's actually three different segmentations of the marketplace.

Q: I think people up until now haven't heard from you that number three. They've heard two.

A: I actually said it at the All Things D, but nobody picked it up! It's in the video. I said there's three things: there's the BlackBerry communications device, there's the tablet, and there's the super phone, the super smartphone. I think there's all three markets. I think much of the world is still very cost sensitive, much of the world is still on 2G, much of the world is still very excited about being able to communicate with everybody ...

Q: You guys have the ideal product for India, and there's 1.2 billion people in India.

A: So let me ask you: three years ago, would you have said that?

Q: Three years ago, you didn't have a sales operation, relationships and structure to deal with those markets.




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