QNX-Based BlackBerry Colt Rushed to Market amid Poor Blackberry 7 Sales

They did it before, and might do it once again. Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion admittedly rushed to the market its first touch-enabled smartphone, the BlackBerry Storm, and might do the same with the upcoming BlackBerry Colt device, their first handset to run under the QNX platform.

Apparently, sales of RIM's recently launched BlackBerry 7 devices are not as high as expected, and the company is determined to bring the next-generation smartphones to shelves sooner than initially planned so as to prevent steep decline.

However, that would result in the inclusion of a smaller number of features with the first QNX-based handset, supposedly called BlackBerry Colt, analysts suggest.

In a recent note, Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek reportedly stated that sales of new BlackBerry smartphones are not meeting expectations, and that older handsets are showing increasingly slow performance, which should result in lower quarterly earning coming out from RIM.

He also notes that RIM might consider launching the next-generation smartphone much sooner than initially planned, and that various important features might be excluded from the mix.

”Based on our checks, we believe the phone is being rushed and features are being stripped,” Misek stated.

“Most importantly, the integration of BES/BIS email/calendar is proving difficult, and we think a QNX phone without these would be a disaster.”

This is not the first time RIM is said to be removing the BlackBerry Enterprise Server from the future platform releases, but it appears that there might be a simple explanation for it.

Recently, leaked screenshots showing what the BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 might be all about have made it into the wild, and they also showed that Exchange/Active Sync, IMAP, POP, CalDAV and CardDAV accounts will be available for PlayBook users, while BES was not listed among them.

There is the possibility that RIM has hard times including support for the existing BES service in upcoming QNX OS flavors, but that it would fix this by releasing a new flavor of its corporate email, calendar and other PIM service, one that will offer support for both QNX devices, as well as for older BlackBerry phones, BGR suggests.