14 DAY TRIAL // Research In Motion confirmed once again on Monday that a second iteration of its touchscreen BlackBerry Storm mobile phone was in the works. The company's co-CEO Jim Balsillie is reported to have stated that the phone maker was working on the development of the next-generation device, which builds on the success the original Storm had seen on the market.
When talking about the BlackBerry Storm, Balsillie said, “That product was a huge success in terms of sales and adoption,” reports Reuters. In addition, the co-CEO also stated that sales of the device remained strong, which drove the company towards considering the further development of the line, though he gave no specific details on the upcoming Storm 2 (if this is going to be the actual name of the phone).
As many of you might already know, the Storm was the first touchscreen device RIM released on the market, and it was seen by some as its response to Apple's iPhone. Though the handset was successful, its adoptions has been slowed down by numerous firmware issues, some of which have already been addressed with software updates, and the successor of the touchscreen phone is expected to eliminate these issues right from the start.
According to a report from The NPD Group, RIM's BlackBerry Storm device was placed third in the top-selling consumer smartphone chart for the United States, being surpassed by the BlackBerry Curve 8300 series and the iPhone 3G. In addition, the BlackBerry Pearl phone came in fourth in the top, which shows after all that RIM's handsets have been received quite well on the market.
For what it's worth, there are a lot of users who expect the BlackBerry Storm 2 to come to the market, and previous rumors placed the launch of the device sometime this fall, or before Christmas, also hoping that the second iteration of the touchscreen device would include better functionality and come with no software problems.