Does RIM have a backup plan?

With barely a day that goes by without yet another report showing Research In Motion Ltd. shedding market share, many in the industry have begun to wonder whether the Canadian company has any hope of clawing its way back and regaining relevance.
While knocking RIM has become a spectator sport in the world of wireless, at least one analyst believes all is not lost for the firm. After all, while BlackBerry is certainly losing market share to the likes of Apple Inc. and the Android brigade, RIM is still a profitable company making money and selling rather a lot of phones, even if the numbers are significantly down.
“The venerable BlackBerry is currently in a ‘tweener’ stage,” said Jack Gold of Gold Associates recently, pointing out that the existing generation of devices and the OS that powers them is getting old but that RIM was in the process of significantly revamping its OS with the help of QNX.
RIM, says Gold, has also only just begun thinking about how to integrate a plethora of technologies it has been stashing under its bed after acquisition over the past couple of years including the Torch Browser, extending BES to manage iPhone and Android devices, in-app monetization, social media extensions, push notifications, location-based services and more.
It may well take two years for the firm to figure out how to best use all of its assets, says Gold, but some of the initial fruits of the BlackBerry maker’s labors can already be seen in the current PlayBook OS, which will soon filter down to RIM’s smartphone offerings.
But after such a long wait, will anyone still care, and is it too little too late? Gold believes it isn’t, and that RIM has a backup plan which could prove to be “a real winner.”
“QNX gives RIM a strategic advantage as a high performance and highly adaptable RTOS (real time operating system). What if BlackBerry devices (and PlayBooks) could have multiple OS boot capability? Image a BlackBerry device running Android better than Samsung, Motorola, et al! And imagine it does it with complete security and manageability. That’s what RIM could actually do on its devices and has already hinted at doing with its Android app player. QNX gives RIM that capability and more,” says Gold.
Indeed, explains Gold, if one were to replace the kernel in Android with QNX Neutrino, one would end up with a compatible Android platform that exceeds the performance of vanilla Android, and adds a host of features not available in Android like security, full DRM, app segmentation (Balance), BlackBerry Messenger, etc.
“That could put RIM in the position of running the best Android on the market,” states Gold, calling the strategy a “safety net” in case BlackBerry OS fails to be “the best of the best.”
The move would also allow RIM to market its devices as being capable of running apps from either OS, just like Apple can run Microsoft Corp.’s Windows apps on its Mac OS PC platform.
“Cleary Android version compatibility will still be an issue (e.g., Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb),” says Gold, “but no more so than with any other devices already in the market.”
While a possible dual-boot Android/BlackBerry OS solution could certainly help RIM stay afloat in the hearts and minds of smartphone users, it’s obviously not the firm’s preferred outcome says Gold. Then again, it would provide the best of both worlds and act as a back-up if the new BlackBerry OS doesn’t prove quite as popular as hoped for.
“And RIM would still make lots of profits in the extended services beyond vanilla Android it could offer users,” explains Gold, calling it a “win-win strategy.”
After all, says Gold, it certainly puts RIM in a lower risk position than Nokia Corp. with its “all its eggs in one basket” strategy and ahead of “the largely undifferentiated and no real value added Android-clones from many Far East suppliers.”
Thus, while RIM may be down, it would not be wise to count the firm out just yet.