I didn't read the article but I am wondering what "grassroots buzz" could mean? Giving them to the fans to create a buzz, does that mean the Dev Alpha devices they will set-up shops in August and allow people to have hands-on time with the BB10 OS and play with it?
Interesting idea, and I want my hands on a device NOW!!! so anything for the fans, I support it as BB10 looks amazing...on N4BB they showed off the new Share UI features, looks astonishing!
IMO it means the primary target is to get the current BB users to upgrade to BB10 and NOT leave the platform. Current BB users would explain better just how big a shift in platform capabilities it is. If a quarter of the ~80 million strong BB users upgrade to BB10 in the first two quarters that is 10 million sales approx per quarter. That is a successful launch by any measure. If BB10 is as good as they say it is sentiment should spread much easily from this core group.
Then they would go for the naysayers and if they win back 5% of the smart phone market, the sales would be nothing to sniff at. 5% of quarterly smartphone shipments means about 5 million new users to the platform. By then they should have weeded out kinks from the platform, attracted a few more developers and added more functionality.
I'd love to see a discount of some sort to current OS7 device owners, or possibly even the ability to purchase an use the device a few weeks before the official release to the public. We are the fans! We will be the ones who say how awesome BB10 to other people. They know who uses the phones because of BBID.
i would keep my 9900 and want to trade in my old 8900, maybe get my GF to upgrade to a BB10 since i think she will be due for a hardware upgrade by then, either way i would want to keep my BB7 device, it is still a great piece of hardware and would make a good back up incase my BB10 device gets run over by a scissor lift