In conjunction with its BlackBerry Developers Conference in San Francisco, RIM has announced the launch of its BBX platform.

Labelled as the best of its BlackBerry platform and its QNX OS, RIM is calling BBX, its 'next generation platform for future BlackBerry smartphones and tablets'.

In addition, RIM announced plenty about new developer tools, including the release of the Native SDK for PlayBook, a beta of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 with support for running Android apps, WebWorks SDK 2.2, and the new BlackBerry Jam developer support initiative.

Tools for all

The BBX platform includes the BBX operating system, as well as supporting BlackBerry cloud services and environments for HTML5 and native development.

This means developers will be able to use tools ranging from the Native SDK to Adobe AIR/Flash, WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps - on future BlackBerry devices.

It includes the new Cascades UI Framework for advanced graphics created by RIM-owned Swedish UI outfit The Astonishing Tribe, although this won't be available until a future release of the Native SDK.

Another RIM acquisition, Scoreloop, has bought its social gaming platform to BBX, with the Scoreloop SDK now available in beta for the Native SDK through BlackBerry Beta Zone.

It enables developers to add support for leaderboards, challenges, awards, achievements, and player profiles, across iOS, Android, Windows Phone, bada and BBX games.

Let's go Android

Providing more features for the PlayBook tablet, RIM has also released a developer beta of the PlayBook OS 2.0. This supports Adobe Air 3.0 and Adobe Flash 11, as well as the hardware-accelerated WebGL technology.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the release of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps, allowing developers to bring Android apps to PlayBook, it's claimed with requiring any code changes, just repackaging the Android APK.

It enables developers to repackage their Android apps for PlayBook online, using a step-by-step tool. This includes compatibility testing, and repackaging and signing apps for submission to BlackBerry App World.

For offline work, there's also the BlackBerry Plug-In for ADT, which extends the standard Eclipse Android development environment to PlayBook, including a simulator for testing and debugging.