In an interview with CrackBerry, Research In Motion CEO revealed that the company will announce both the all-touch BlackBerry device as well as one with a physical QWERTY keyboard (the first L-Series and N-Series devices?) at the same time:
“We will announce them together and not in sequence. We’ll just come out and say full touch available at (this date) and full QWERTY available at (this date).”
While the devices will not be available simultaneously, it appears that the window between both launches will be quite small. RIM will be able to market both simultaneously.
Heins also explained why RIM, famous for its physical QWERTY keyboards, will launch BlackBerry 10 with an all-touch device. He provides two reasons. First, as he says, “without being arrogant, I think we own the full qwerty market.” Second is that the all-touch device is actually more complicated and RIM wanted to get it ready first to clear “the pipeline for the platform,” suggesting that RIM wants to quickly follow up these first two devices with additional ones.
Speaking about the launch date which slipped to Q1 2013, Heins was adamant that there would be no further slips:
“I’m very confident about the first quarter, whether it’s January or February,” Heins told me. “You’ll see lab entry and technical acceptance already kicking in, in Q4. Just the ramp up and launch with carriers will happen in Q1.”
All in all, a very interesting interview and a good read…
Read more: CrackBerry