Blackberry's "brand new" BBX Operating System: Don't change the OS

BKJIA October 24 Internet headlines is a BlackBerry World or DevCon conference. It is also a bunch of promises from senior executives of RIM and prospects for a bright future-but obviously, the Blackberry platform is still on the verge of a half-dead crash. This week, they launched BBX, a "brand new" operating system that will become the core of blackberry PlayBook tablet devices and smartphones. According to RIM, BBX will allow developers to enjoy the best features they can imagine. Aha, how do we feel familiar with this argument?

Nonsense-BBX is indeed more advanced than RIM's development strategy, but after more than a year, most of the content promised at the beginning still fails to be fulfilled. Developers and IT managers need to stay awake and have a clear understanding of RIM's useless enterprise. In short, don't invest any more in these guys.

Let's go back to last July, when RIM declared that its BlackBerry Torch will be introduced into BlackBerry OS 6, the operating system is oriented to flagship products under the BlackBerry brand, it also promised to support a series of models released at that time and later. However, this has never come true. The 6.1 system update, which was supposed to bring users a more advanced Web browser and a more graphic UI, was finally named as BlackBerry OS 7 and not available until this summer-only for the latest models, instead of the old model that was previously promised to support last year to date. (On the surface, this strategy can encourage consumers to upgrade their devices to adapt to the new system. However, this seems to be counterproductive, and everyone is more willing to regard it as a good opportunity to turn to the iPhone and other Blackberry competitors .)

BlackBerry Enterprise-level Server 5.03 was also released in last July and also made a commitment to support the current model. In the end, it met consumers nine months later and added security enhancements for the PlayBook tablet devices and most BlackBerry OS 6.0 smartphone models. Although this commitment was not met, but it is very late. In contrast, similar functions in iOS systems were released one year earlier, and were successfully implemented with the help of a third-party mobile device management (MDM) tool in a few months.

Recall that in July March this year, RIM began to promote the market for its unofficially released BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and said that its QNX operating system would be able to smoothly run Android applications. It turns out that these scams once again played with our feelings. In the end, RIM used a mechanism similar to the Android runtime environment. You need to modify the Android Application and re-compile the result to be compatible with PlayBook, therefore, only derivative applications of Android can be run. Obviously, the promise of running Android programs on QNX is a bubble again.

Even compiling Android applications into QNX format is a lie. In this regard, the company once said that it would launch two versions of the BlackBerry tablet device OS (its official name is QNX-based PlayBook OS), but the next step is the unlimited "coming soon... We do not know when to wait till now. The Developer Preview version of the BlackBerry tablet OS 2.0 was renamed PlayBook OS 2.0 this week. Therefore, we are optimistic that it will be available next year.

Now let's look at the "brand new" BBX. Undoubtedly, this is just to add a new label to the existing content: A unified tablet device/Smartphone OS, it is based on the OS (QNX system) of the BlackBerry tablet device on the incomparable failure PlayBook BlackBerry tablet ). This uniformity is based on the QNX system purchased by RIM at the beginning of last year, but it has not been implemented yet. BBX is just an official name and does not mean it is a brand new OS. Therefore, although many reporters are blinded by BBX's bright prospects and Other Rhetoric, however, users, IT administrators, and developers must be aware of this issue.

RIM also stressed to developers this week that the plan's bbx OS will be available through RIM's WebWorks SDK (released a year ago and updated this week) provide development environment support to HTML 5 developers, and provide the same support to the BlackBerry tablet OS developers on the local device through RIM's Native SDK. BBX will also support applications developed using Adobe AIR, Adobe Flash, and blackberry runtime environments for Android. (Currently, PlayBook OS supports AIR and Flash, and Native SDK 1.0 applications can also cope with it .)

Does the above message sound attractive? However, pay attention to the following three major issues:

◆ RIM never explicitly stated or even hinted that blackberry OS applications (that is, those for smartphones) can run in BBX in any way. I personally guess this compatibility cannot be achieved, so the BlackBerry OS application is directly sentenced to death here. RIM's work on transition over the past year is truly "On the top", so we have reason to believe that BBX will not make an exception in providing the necessary compatibility models for BlackBerry OS.

◆ RIM strives to point out that various applications will run on "BBX-based tablet devices and smartphones in the future"-in other words, the existing devices are likely to suffer. According to RIM's consistent practices in the smartphone field, I think the current BlackBerry PlayBook (this tablet uses version 1.0 OS) you will not be able to handle the BlackBerry OS 2.0 or Android operating environment that will be available in the future. In this regard, we have limited the means to develop applications for PlayBook to HTML 5, AIR, or Flash, because according to RIM, only these will run in the future's new systems. On the other hand, considering that the sales of PlayBook are so bleak, maybe we should abandon the idea of developing applications for RIM's tablet until they can come up with a new product design solution that is quite competitive in the market.

◆ Some hints, but it is still unclear that PlayBook OS 2.0 is the same as bbx OS. Since RIM does not confuse the two names, I guess they should be two different systems. If you develop on PlayBook OS 2.0, you may have to repeat or at least rework to make the results run on bbx OS tablet devices and smartphones. Since PlayBook OS 2.0 is still in the Developer Preview version status, and its release date is earlier than bbx OS, I don't think it will actually be paid for before 2013. At that time, both iOS 6.3 and Android 5.0 came out. What else can it do?

RIM is clearly in an embarrassing situation. It ignores and passively denies the great changes in the mobile communication market over the past three years, in addition, it seems dull and hesitant to keep up with the pace of the times-this has been presented as a negative case in the book The Innovator's dilemma. The market is still changing rapidly-the legendary BlackBerry development experience is now shrouded in the dark atmosphere of the bell-and I find that RIM is still stubborn. And even if the company's various commitments can be fulfilled, it still faces great risks in investing our development time and money into RIM's projects. Currently, RIM seems to have become a child who keeps shouting "wolf". iOS and Android are trustworthy platforms for down-to-earth developers.