Research In Motion (RIM) will launch the BlackBerry 10 in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Wednesday, and Gartner’s Vice President of Research believes it could signal a comeback for the Canadian phone manufacturer.
Gartner’s survey of companies primarily located in North America from December 2012 shows almost 14 percent will still have BlackBerry as their primary platform in 12 months despite the iPhone and Android based smartphones having replaced BlackBerry handsets in the enterprise.
Phillip Redman, Research VP, said: “Speaking with clients regularly, I see the same level of interest – generally 15-20% of mobile employees who still prefer RIM for its security and its hard keyboard.
“Preliminary views of the new device don’t show much differentiation on hardware form factor – though it is skinny, feels solid and a similar size screen to the iPhone 5. It’s the user experience that will make the difference, which is where RIM focused its energies. From what I have seen, it pays off. “
Redman believes the BB10 will reclaim some market share. He explained: “The new BB10 offers the best UX on the market – not perfect, but certainly a rival to the iPhone 5, with even greater performance. The question is: will the market take it?
“So I’ll go on record here saying that it will. Now I don’t expect it to surpass iOS or Android sales, but I think this device has great comeback potential. And the fact that enterprises can support it using Exchange Active Synch offers a low impact solution if they don’t upgrade to the BES 10.”
So despite the multi-platform mobile device management BES10 announcement, it all comes down to the handset and new operating system launch next week.
Redman concluded: “RIM has a lot riding on the… announcements – maybe the future of the company. It will be an interesting year ahead.”
