AUSTIN, Texas – Amidst reports of layoffs and lawsuits, BlackBerry-maker Research-In-Motion is reaching out the people who could represent its best hope for survival: software developers. Today the company kicked off the U.S. leg of its BlackBerry 10 Jam tour in Austin, Texas. From here the tour heads to Santa Clara, Calif., and New York. Outside the United States, BlackBerry 10 Jam will make stops in Toronto, Paris, London, Moscow, Berlin and Warsaw, Poland. (The tour visited Milan, Italy, and Barcelona, Spain, last month.)
RIM says BlackBerry users are hungry for apps, and that the BlackBerry 10 represents a big opportunity for developers. It may also represent RIM’s last opportunity to remain viable in the smartphone business it once dominated. RIM has seen its customer base and stock price deteriorate steadily in the face of competition from the iPhone and from Android smartphones. But the company still has a proprietary secure messaging service that has made BlackBerry the smartphone of choice for U.S. government employees and others who place a very high value on security.
With BlackBerry 10, RIM is hoping offer its trademark security in a modern touchscreen smartphone. But to make the phone successful, RIM knows it needs an ecosystem of applications. The company gave away thousands of BlackBerry 10 prototypes to developers last month, and now is following up with face-to-face meetings with the software community.
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