Carriers Begin Testing RIM’s BlackBerry 10 Phones

Struggling Canadian smartphone maker RIM has announced that its BlackBerry 10 smartphones have entered the carrier testing phase. The milestone is a crucial marker for the company, which previously was forced to postpone the launch of its new operating system and devices.

“After months and months of delays, it appears RIM’s new mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10, is still on track to launch in early 2013,” wrote Business Insider’s Steve Kovach. “In a statement, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said 50 mobile carriers are now testing BB10, a critical step before its release. Carriers must perform thorough testing on smartphones before they agree to sell.”

Bloomberg quoted RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, who said, “In the last week, BlackBerry 10 achieved lab entry with more than 50 carriers — a key step in our preparedness for the launch of BlackBerry 10 in the first quarter of 2013.”

John Paczkowski from All Things D noted, “That’s great news for RIM, which has been scrambling to launch BlackBerry 10 after numerous delays. Those postponements have cost it the all-important holiday shopping season, so it’s crucial that RIM hits its early 2013 deadline. And this is promising news indeed. RIM shares are trading up well over 4 percent following its release.”

Another story from Reuters also holds good news for RIM: “The Pentagon on Wednesday said it would continue to support ‘large numbers’ of BlackBerry phones made by Research in Motion Ltd even as it moves forward with plans that would allow the U.S. military to begin using Apple Inc’s iPhone and other devices.”

RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS

• Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  December 04, 2020

• Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 18, 2020

• Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  November 10, 2020

• Top 10 AIOps Companies

  FEATURE |  By Samuel Greengard,
  November 05, 2020

• What is Text Analysis?

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 02, 2020

• How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 29, 2020

• Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 23, 2020

• The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 16, 2020

• Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  October 07, 2020

• Finding a Career Path in AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  October 05, 2020

• CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  September 25, 2020

• Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 25, 2020

• Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  September 22, 2020

• NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 18, 2020

• Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 14, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 13, 2020

• IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 11, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

  FEATURE |  By James Maguire,
  September 09, 2020

• Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 05, 2020

• The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  August 14, 2020