Thorsten Heins: RIM will consider licensing BB10 software
In an interview with a German newspaper, RIM CEO says that they will look at all options in 2013, including licensing software to other manufacturers and even sell the hardware division. But he stressed that the BB10 launch is their priority.
Buoyed by the recent stream of good news, leading into the critical launch of the BlackBerry 10 hardware and operating system, Research In Motion (RIM) is confident about possible company wide restructuring it may have to undertake in 2013. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, in an interview with the German Newspaper Die Welt, said that the company might look to get into strategic alliances with other smartphone manufacturers.
Also not completely denied was the thinking that RIM may sell the smartphone manufacturing business during the course of the year, and focus only on the software side. We had been hearing rumours about RIM considering selling the hardware business since the autumn of last year, but as things stand, it is ‘still open to consideration’.
The most important comment made by Heins was “The main thing for now is to successfully introduce BlackBerry 10. Then we’ll see.” RIM is betting big on the new range of hardware and the new operating system, which is all set for launch towards the end of January 2013. The new operating system will allow RIM to close in the gap to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. The new hardware, with the full touchscreen and the touchscreen QWERTY combination looks very impressive going by all the leaks we have seen till now.
All in all, if RIM does decide to stop making smartphone, it will be a rather sad moment. After all, we may have criticised RIM for not having the best OS out there, but the hardware has mostly been top notch.
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