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BlackBerry Storm 3 to be First QNX Smartphone from RIM?

Categories: BlackBerry, Rumors
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 2:25 PM

An anonymous tipster has suggested that the big 3.7″ BlackBerry Storm we saw with a trackpad will in fact be running the operating system made by QNX found in the PlayBook tablet. We were fairly certain this transition was going to happen eventually, and jives well with rumours we had heard back in July. The same source confirms suspicions that the new Storm will not have SurePress, and suggests that it will meet the PlayBook’s standards for the QNX OS (like 8 GB of storage space, 1 GB of RAM, and a 1 GHz processor).

In all honesty, if I could put this post in the “Rumors” category twice, I would. There’s no hard evidence to support the claim, and the source of the rumour has no real established history. Still, the way the post worded that OS 7 at one point was going to be a stepping stone to QNX on BlackBerry handsets is pretty much exactly what I heard back at DevCon when a VP told me that this was RIM’s plan in the long run. The only difference now is that it sounds like OS 7 will actually be QNX, rather than just a stop along the way.

We’re still not sure when this device will actually hit the market, but if does ship with the QNX operating system, it really can’t come soon enough; it represents a whole new bar for BlackBerry, and once it lands on phones, it will obliterate people’s notions of the platform being tired, old, and slow.

Anyway take this rumour with a big ol’ grain of salt for now, and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any further confirmation.

[via GizmoFusion]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.