Like Nokia, RIM has to deal with 6 months of transition until new OS devices ship in 2012

As it seeks to deal with transition from its current BlackBerry 7 OS to the new OS QNX, as well as various corporate woes, RIM's joint CEOs have been rallying the troops, or at least the shareholders.

The company has announced a slew of new handsets for the remainder of 2011, which will run on a new chipset but the old OS.

Meanwhile, smartphones running QNX aren't due until early 2012, although a 4G PlayBook tablet, which is currently RIM's only QNX device, is due later in 2011.

Mind the gap

It's a situation similar to Nokia, which is moving slowly from its legacy Symbian OS to Windows Mobile devices. Like Nokia, RIM will continue to support BlackBerry 7 OS for its entry level messaging devices, while simultaneously pushing forward with QNX for tablets and smartphones.

The issue for both companies is the two to three quarters of falling earnings until volumes of high end, high price devices become available.

RIM is also following Nokia's lead, by restructuring, cutting jobs and cost. RIM says it will announce more details about this in its next earnings call in mid-September.

[source: mocoNews]