[belfastdispatcher]

in markets we could care less about. i don't care that malaysia or south america keep the legacy ship going for BBRY. "As opposed to BB10", at least you have somewhere to go with that money, where are you going to go with BBOS? Absolutely no where, exactly where it is now- just waiting to die. and whoever said they could have released a new generation of BBOS devices is smoking something, puff puff pass!

Are you somehow under the impression that BBOS devices go dirt cheap in emerging markets? What's wrong with their cash? Besides, a big chunk of the sales(a quarter?) was to North America.

[belfastdispatcher]

No I believe that the entire OS and apps had to be loaded in the 768 RAM for BBOS to work. It would not dynamically use the space as needed like most OS. The OS and apps were stored in the 2GB reserved section of the 8GB total eMMC, leaving 6GB For other stuff.

And I don't think they didn't put more RAM in for the heck of it, like many OS, they hit a ceiling of some sort.

Posted via CB10

Anything can benefit from more RAM. I don't believe BBOS couldn't take advantage of more RAM, what are you basing this on?

[extisis]

Are you somehow under the impression that BBOS devices go dirt cheap in emerging markets? What's wrong with their cash? Besides, a big chunk of the sales(a quarter?) was to North America.

i wasn't really talking on how much those devices cost in emerging markets. what's wrong with their cash is that it's limited. sure billions, but to spend on maintaining both OS's is just going to hurt them. i think even going to 2015 is too long to support BBOS. eventually all legacy users will lose all support so i don't know why you keep defending this idea to keep 2 or even 3 OS's active.

[extisis]

Anything can benefit from more RAM. I don't believe BBOS couldn't take advantage of more RAM, what are you basing this on?

somebody already talked on this. no amount of RAM will help a BBOS device function any better and if it did, you'd compromise an already crappy battery to work even harder. just simple logic.

[rthonpm]

Anything can benefit from more RAM. I don't believe BBOS couldn't take advantage of more RAM, what are you basing this on?

Not true at all: try using more than 64KB with a 16-bit system, or 6 GB with an x86 processor. If the system has a limit to the amount of RAM it can see adding more will do nothing.

[hanexs]

You can install Windows NT on new hardware but it still doesn't remove the underlying problem of increasing functionality. It's the same thing with BBOS: there's nothing more to do in terms of developing it. Better hardware would just make the animation for the spinning clock that much nicer to see, and give the OS more available memory to read when it tries to access something.

This is an odd argument as NT is an example of what I am proposing/inquiring about. I thought the core/kernel of NT is part of windows 8 as well at windows phone 8? Isn't this a successful example of upgrading an os rather then starting from scratch?

Using a ten year old OS isn't what I was inquiring about, rather I am just wondering if the considerable amount of work poured into BB10, could it have been better redirected at improving/modernizing BBOS.

[belfastdispatcher]

i wasn't really talking on how much those devices cost in emerging markets. what's wrong with their cash is that it's limited. sure billions, but to spend on maintaining both OS's is just going to hurt them. i think even going to 2015 is too long to support BBOS. eventually all legacy users will lose all support so i don't know why you keep defending this idea to keep 2 or even 3 OS's active.

We're talking in retrospective as in what should've done in 2012. It's too late now.

[belfastdispatcher]

Not true at all: try using more than 64KB with a 16-bit system, or 6 GB with an x86 processor. If the system has a limit to the amount of RAM it can see adding more will do nothing.

Right, so who said 768mb was the BBOS ram limit? Perhaps the limit is 1gb, 1.5gb or even 2gb.

[lnichols]

Anything can benefit from more RAM. I don't believe BBOS couldn't take advantage of more RAM, what are you basing this on?

All OS's have RAM limitations. Windows 95 was 480MB at one point and patched to 2GB. 32 Bit Windows is 4GB as is 32 Bit Mac. Linux is 64GB but only if you have PAE enabled in the build, otherwise it is 4GB. XPfree - OS and System RAM Limitations guide.

Given that a BBOS 7 has severe app limitations (see The maximum size of a BlackBerry 7 or earlier smar... - BlackBerry Support Community Forums for more info), do you not think that their were limitations on the resources that the OS could support like all other OS's have. Look at that document and see how small the app sizes are, and then think about how that is a limit of the OS, and then extrapolate to if that is the app size limit, then what is the resource limit

[belfastdispatcher]

All OS's have RAM limitations. Windows 95 was 480MB at one point and patched to 2GB. 32 Bit Windows is 4GB as is 32 Bit Mac. Linux is 64GB but only if you have PAE enabled in the build, otherwise it is 4GB. XPfree - OS and System RAM Limitations guide.

Given that a BBOS 7 has severe app limitations (see The maximum size of a BlackBerry 7 or earlier smar... - BlackBerry Support Community Forums for more info), do you not think that their were limitations on the resources that the OS could support like all other OS's have. Look at that document and see how small the app sizes are, and then think about how that is a limit of the OS, and then extrapolate to if that is the app size limit, then what is the resource limit

Most apps don't need to be that big, and a screen the size of the Q10 doesn't need such high quality graphics.

The app argument is kind of pointless since BB10 never got the apps anyway.


Question is, how much RAM could BBOS run? What is the limit?

[RubberChicken76]

Most apps don't need to be that big, and a screen the size of the Q10 doesn't need such high quality graphics.

The app argument is kind of pointless since BB10 never got the apps anyway.

That's a gross exaggeration. I have far, far more apps on my Z10 and PlayBook than I ever had on any BBOD devices and I use third party apps a lot more. The system could handle it and there were plenty of titles (especially games) that weren't on BBOS

I get that you love BBOS and not BlackBerry 10, but you're really reaching by trying to perpetually imply the app platform limitations on BBOS wasn't a massive problem

[lnichols]

Most apps don't need to be that big, and a screen the size of the Q10 doesn't need such high quality graphics.

The app argument is kind of pointless since BB10 never got the apps anyway.


Question is, how much RAM could BBOS run? What is the limit?

You have/had contacts at BlackBerry, why don't you contact them as a homework assignment and find this out for us. Instead of just dismissing apps and the article referenced it is clear that their are severe limitations in how BBOS handles code. The BBOS is a series of COD files and native apps and below shows you what the limitations are of that setup:

BlackBerry smartphone applications are compiled into the .cod file format. The maximum size of an individual COD file is 128 KB. This number includes a maximum limit of 64 KB for application data (compiled code) and 64 KB for resource data. (For example, images and files.)

If an application is larger than the 128 KB limit (64 KB of application data and 64 KB of resource data), sibling COD files can be created and packaged into a single main COD file. Sibling COD files are a series of COD files that are suffixed with -#, where # is incremented for each sibling COD file. These sibling COD files are then packaged into the main COD file following the basic ZIP structure. The sibling COD files adhere to the 128 KB (64 KB + 64 KB) size limit. To determine if your application contains sibling COD files, you can attempt to open the COD file with WinZip�. If the COD file contains sibling COD files, you can open, view or extract the sibling COD files in the same way as a ZIP file.

The limit for the number of sibling COD files that can exist within a single application is 127. This means that the maximum theoretical size limit for an application would be 16256 KB, which consists of 8128 KB of application data and 8128 KB of resource data. There is some overhead to this value, which brings the actual maximum size limit closer to 14000 KB. The actual maximum size for an application will vary slightly based on the application's contents.

It is not possible for either data type (application or resource) to make use of unused space of another data type, meaning resource data cannot use application data space even if the application data is well under the limit.

All of this is based on limitations of the OS. Someone from BlackBerry would have to tell us the exact number of a RAM limitation. Their is definitely one there, and my theory is that it isn't a very high number given the restrictions on apps, and the hardware that was released.

[belfastdispatcher]

That's a gross exaggeration. I have far, far more apps on my Z10 and PlayBook than I ever had on any BBOD devices and I use third party apps a lot more. The system could handle it and there were plenty of titles (especially games) that weren't on BBOS

I get that you love BBOS and not BlackBerry 10, but you're really reaching by trying to perpetually imply the app platform limitations on BBOS wasn't a massive problem

There are far more important BBOS apps that never made it to BB10 then the other way around, banking apps for example, and many BB own apps too: BB News, Social Feeds are a couple sorely missed.

[belfastdispatcher]

You have/had contacts at BlackBerry, why don't you contact them as a homework assignment and find this out for us. Instead of just dismissing apps and the article referenced it is clear that their are severe limitations in how BBOS handles code. The BBOS is a series of COD files and native apps and below shows you what the limitations are of that setup:



All of this is based on limitations of the OS. Someone from BlackBerry would have to tell us the exact number of a RAM limitation. Their is definitely one there, and my theory is that it isn't a very high number given the restrictions on apps, and the hardware that was released.

I would but they don't have a clue, they used to contact me to help them with their devices when they had a problem lol

[ubizmo]

You mean banking their future of an illusion? Because that's what BB10 was at that time, nothing more then an idea that didn't pan out. Basically they traded the bird in their hand for the one in the bush. Knowing what we know now about BB10 it was nothing more then a gamble.

Yes, here in the future we know things they didn't know when BB10 was being planned and developed. And yes, it was a gamble--a huge gamble. All innovation starts out as an idea, and some ideas don't pan out. It's the nature of gambles to be risky, and it's the nature of risky things to fail a lot of the time.

I think everybody at BlackBerry/RIM understood that BB10 was extremely risky.

But the point that many in this thread are making is that continuing with BBOS was even riskier, i.e., more likely to fail. The fact that BBOS is outselling BB10 now doesn't show that BBOS was the way forward; it only shows how abysmally BB10 has fared.

One of the scary things about technology is that it's impossible to predict how long things will take, for the simple reason that it's impossible to anticipate every problem, especially in hideously complex systems where a glitch in one part can ripple out and affect other parts. Having to delay the launch of BB10 was a horrible eventuality, but what was even worse was having to launch it, delayed, in a state not really ready for prime time. Nobody predicted these things; nobody could have. But in my opinion they made the right move by taking the risk.

I grant you it's very hard to see how BlackBerry can recover, but despite that, they're still in the smartphone business, with a new and well-tested hardware partner. The OS is maturing in fits and starts, so the gamble is still on the table. The dealer hasn't swept all the chips yet.

If BlackBerry must fail as a company, I personally would rather it be as a result of a bold gamble on innovation than by retreating into the technological bunker of BBOS.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

OP to answer your question - YES they needed a new OS. Back in 2009/2010 there were a number of pretty smart people here that were discussing the limitation of the whole Java framework that BBOS is built on.

No they didn't have to wait three years to determine that, it should have been in the works long before iOS and Android hit the market.
No they didn't need to take another three years to develop it, once they announced it.
No they didn't need to totally abandoned the 1st gen OS users. A minimum hardware requirement should have been developed and STUCK with, and at some point BBOS device should have been produced with those requirements and designed to allow for upgrading to BB10.


The OS is not BlackBerry problem, they were loosing marketshare long before they bought QNX. Mismanagement and not understanding the market are where they failed and when they are struggling today.

[RubberChicken76]

There are far more important BBOS apps that never made it to BB10 then the other way around, banking apps for example, and many BB own apps too: BB News, Social Feeds are a couple sorely missed.

Look at you, acting as though your opinions are facts!

Posted via CB10

[pasha133]

There was no need to replace the OS. It was a boneheaded decision by Lazaridis & Co. that ruined BlackBerry.

There's no reason why any software could not be rewritten to accommodate new features, new hardware, new performance requirements. Microsoft Windows when it first appeared was not designed for modern computers, for Internet, etc. Yet it was rewritten multiple times, rearchitected and redesigned, and features were added so it was able to successfully compete for decades. It was never fully replaced - it always was backwards compatible with old applications and retained the key UI features over the years (until Windows 8, but that's another sad story).

The core of BBOS is C++; Java was added later. The BlackBerry 950 and subsequent models were pure C++ devices, and they were fast! After Java was added, it all went downhill from there.

The key problem was that at RIM, mostly due to mismanagement of software teams and bad hires, the device code was becoming more and more of an unfixable mess. RIM was never anywhere near in software productivity and quality of Google and Apple. Many of the senior and middle management in software teams had no clue about software development, and were more interested in turf wars and career advancement. Senior executives installed their friends (many coming from Nortel and AT&T) as new managers, who hired entirely new teams of bad developers, without asking a single technical questions. There were a lot of really smart people at RIM, but there were even more bad people.

By 2010-2011, teams barely had time to fix bugs and performance issues. Device software could not compete on features with Apple or Google. So Mike L, instead of figuring out how to fix the software, decided to start from scratch and bought QNX to replace current OS.

After QNX acquisition, RIM divided into two camps, and senior management started internal fight that lasted over a year; it was between 'legacy' camp (BIS/BES/BBOS) and 'new guys' (QNX). There was an idea of developing two systems in parallel; then teams tried to port JVM from BBOS to QNX (sic!), which was actually demoed during BlackBerry World 2011 (eventually this was a miserable failure due to mounting technical difficulties and was abandoned, after hundreds of developers spent months on this). Then Apple came with iPad and management geniuses rushed to release a Playbook, on QNX, with no software whatsoever. Nobody internally had a clue what a strategy is and where the company is headed.

After JVM port failed, a second boneheaded decision was made. QNX - based devices would not support legacy BIS/BES protocols. IMAP and ICAL had to be implemented on top of QNX. BIS would be superfluous now. QNX would not connect to old BES so new BES would have to be written. From scratch. Old apps would not run on QNX so new ones would have to be written. Massive layoffs started; managers would now fight to death to stay relevant. Teams would not collaborate to ensure they are not obsoleted by the QNX camp and are not the next ones out the door. Projects were delayed. Mixed signals and resource reallocations led to nothing being spent on BBOS, which was pretty much frozen after (much delayed) BB7. Lack of new devices led to legacy sales falling off the cliff. From a platform of the future, BB10 now became the one and only savior.

Were the problems with BBOS? Sure. Could they be fixed? IMO, yes. There was nothing that could not be changed in the old OS. It's software. At a fraction of time and resources, if right people could have been brought in to manage software teams and make the right hires (and fires), RIM could have fixed BBOS in a year or so, while making several small, bugfix level releases like BB7, with better hardware, smaller # of device models, while preserving BIS/BES and app compatibility. Torch browser was great and was getting better and better; app situation should have been addressed by giving out $$$ to developers, and much earlier; platform and app development should have been migrated towards C++; the rest are features where RIM should have been able to catch up. It would not have stopped the decline, but decline would be much less steep if RIM would (a) avoid the uncertainty associated with new OS and financial situation, (b) maintain compatibility with old apps and features, (c) maintain connectivity with old BIS/BES and (d) regularly release devices with newer hardware and features.

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM but I was not on BBOS. If any former RIM folks are reading this and could shed more light on BBOS story, please post. It's a sad tale of company decline and it would be good to learn its lessons.

[belfastdispatcher]

There was no need to replace the OS. It was a boneheaded decision by Lazaridis & Co. that ruined BlackBerry.

There's no reason why any software could not be rewritten to accommodate new features, new hardware, new performance requirements. Microsoft Windows when it first appeared was not designed for modern computers, for Internet, etc. Yet it was rewritten multiple times, rearchitected and redesigned, and features were added so it was able to successfully compete for decades. It was never fully replaced - it always was backwards compatible with old applications and retained the key UI features over the years (until Windows 8, but that's another sad story).

The core of BBOS is C++; Java was added later. The BlackBerry 950 and subsequent models were pure C++ devices, and they were fast! After Java was added, it all went downhill from there.

The key problem was that at RIM, mostly due to mismanagement of software teams and bad hires, the device code was becoming more and more of an unfixable mess. RIM was never anywhere near in software productivity and quality of Google and Apple. Many of the senior and middle management in software teams had no clue about software development, and were more interested in turf wars and career advancement. Senior executives installed their friends (many coming from Nortel and AT&T) as new managers, who hired entirely new teams of bad developers, without asking a single technical questions. There were a lot of really smart people at RIM, but there were even more bad people.

By 2010-2011, teams barely had time to fix bugs and performance issues. Device software could not compete on features with Apple or Google. So Mike L, instead of figuring out how to fix the software, decided to start from scratch and bought QNX to replace current OS.

After QNX acquisition, RIM divided into two camps, and senior management started internal fight that lasted over a year; it was between 'legacy' camp (BIS/BES/BBOS) and 'new guys' (QNX). There was an idea of developing two systems in parallel; then teams tried to port JVM from BBOS to QNX (sic!), which was actually demoed during BlackBerry World 2011 (eventually this was a miserable failure due to mounting technical difficulties and was abandoned, after hundreds of developers spent months on this). Then Apple came with iPad and management geniuses rushed to release a Playbook, on QNX, with no software whatsoever. Nobody internally had a clue what a strategy is and where the company is headed.

After JVM port failed, a second boneheaded decision was made. QNX - based devices would not support legacy BIS/BES protocols. IMAP and ICAL had to be implemented on top of QNX. BIS would be superfluous now. QNX would not connect to old BES so new BES would have to be written. From scratch. Old apps would not run on QNX so new ones would have to be written. Massive layoffs started; managers would now fight to death to stay relevant. Teams would not collaborate to ensure they are not obsoleted by the QNX camp and are not the next ones out the door. Projects were delayed. Mixed signals and resource reallocations led to nothing being spent on BBOS, which was pretty much frozen after (much delayed) BB7. Lack of new devices led to legacy sales falling off the cliff. From a platform of the future, BB10 now became the one and only savior.

Were the problems with BBOS? Sure. Could they be fixed? IMO, yes. There was nothing that could not be changed in the old OS. It's software. At a fraction of time and resources, if right people could have been brought in to manage software teams and make the right hires (and fires), RIM could have fixed BBOS in a year or so, while making several small, bugfix level releases like BB7, with better hardware, smaller # of device models, while preserving BIS/BES and app compatibility. Torch browser was great and was getting better and better; app situation should have been addressed by giving out $$$ to developers, and much earlier; platform and app development should have been migrated towards C++; the rest are features where RIM should have been able to catch up. It would not have stopped the decline, but decline would be much less steep if RIM would (a) avoid the uncertainty associated with new OS and financial situation, (b) maintain compatibility with old apps and features, (c) maintain connectivity with old BIS/BES and (d) regularly release devices with newer hardware and features.

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM but I was not on BBOS. If any former RIM folks are reading this and could shed more light on BBOS story, please post. It's a sad tale of company decline and it would be good to learn its lessons.

Wow, thanks you. It's exactly what I thought.

[madcat72]

There was no need to replace the OS. It was a boneheaded decision by Lazaridis & Co. that ruined BlackBerry.

There's no reason why any software could not be rewritten to accommodate new features, new hardware, new performance requirements. Microsoft Windows when it first appeared was not designed for modern computers, for Internet, etc. Yet it was rewritten multiple times, rearchitected and redesigned, and features were added so it was able to successfully compete for decades. It was never fully replaced - it always was backwards compatible with old applications and retained the key UI features over the years (until Windows 8, but that's another sad story).

The core of BBOS is C++; Java was added later. The BlackBerry 950 and subsequent models were pure C++ devices, and they were fast! After Java was added, it all went downhill from there.

The key problem was that at RIM, mostly due to mismanagement of software teams and bad hires, the device code was becoming more and more of an unfixable mess. RIM was never anywhere near in software productivity and quality of Google and Apple. Many of the senior and middle management in software teams had no clue about software development, and were more interested in turf wars and career advancement. Senior executives installed their friends (many coming from Nortel and AT&T) as new managers, who hired entirely new teams of bad developers, without asking a single technical questions. There were a lot of really smart people at RIM, but there were even more bad people.

By 2010-2011, teams barely had time to fix bugs and performance issues. Device software could not compete on features with Apple or Google. So Mike L, instead of figuring out how to fix the software, decided to start from scratch and bought QNX to replace current OS.

After QNX acquisition, RIM divided into two camps, and senior management started internal fight that lasted over a year; it was between 'legacy' camp (BIS/BES/BBOS) and 'new guys' (QNX). There was an idea of developing two systems in parallel; then teams tried to port JVM from BBOS to QNX (sic!), which was actually demoed during BlackBerry World 2011 (eventually this was a miserable failure due to mounting technical difficulties and was abandoned, after hundreds of developers spent months on this). Then Apple came with iPad and management geniuses rushed to release a Playbook, on QNX, with no software whatsoever. Nobody internally had a clue what a strategy is and where the company is headed.

After JVM port failed, a second boneheaded decision was made. QNX - based devices would not support legacy BIS/BES protocols. IMAP and ICAL had to be implemented on top of QNX. BIS would be superfluous now. QNX would not connect to old BES so new BES would have to be written. From scratch. Old apps would not run on QNX so new ones would have to be written. Massive layoffs started; managers would now fight to death to stay relevant. Teams would not collaborate to ensure they are not obsoleted by the QNX camp and are not the next ones out the door. Projects were delayed. Mixed signals and resource reallocations led to nothing being spent on BBOS, which was pretty much frozen after (much delayed) BB7. Lack of new devices led to legacy sales falling off the cliff. From a platform of the future, BB10 now became the one and only savior.

Were the problems with BBOS? Sure. Could they be fixed? IMO, yes. There was nothing that could not be changed in the old OS. It's software. At a fraction of time and resources, if right people could have been brought in to manage software teams and make the right hires (and fires), RIM could have fixed BBOS in a year or so, while making several small, bugfix level releases like BB7, with better hardware, smaller # of device models, while preserving BIS/BES and app compatibility. Torch browser was great and was getting better and better; app situation should have been addressed by giving out $$$ to developers, and much earlier; platform and app development should have been migrated towards C++; the rest are features where RIM should have been able to catch up. It would not have stopped the decline, but decline would be much less steep if RIM would (a) avoid the uncertainty associated with new OS and financial situation, (b) maintain compatibility with old apps and features, (c) maintain connectivity with old BIS/BES and (d) regularly release devices with newer hardware and features.

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM but I was not on BBOS. If any former RIM folks are reading this and could shed more light on BBOS story, please post. It's a sad tale of company decline and it would be good to learn its lessons.

Very good read, thanks.

[lnichols]

There was no need to replace the OS. It was a boneheaded decision by Lazaridis & Co. that ruined BlackBerry.

There's no reason why any software could not be rewritten to accommodate new features, new hardware, new performance requirements. Microsoft Windows when it first appeared was not designed for modern computers, for Internet, etc. Yet it was rewritten multiple times, rearchitected and redesigned, and features were added so it was able to successfully compete for decades. It was never fully replaced - it always was backwards compatible with old applications and retained the key UI features over the years (until Windows 8, but that's another sad story).

The core of BBOS is C++; Java was added later. The BlackBerry 950 and subsequent models were pure C++ devices, and they were fast! After Java was added, it all went downhill from there.

The key problem was that at RIM, mostly due to mismanagement of software teams and bad hires, the device code was becoming more and more of an unfixable mess. RIM was never anywhere near in software productivity and quality of Google and Apple. Many of the senior and middle management in software teams had no clue about software development, and were more interested in turf wars and career advancement. Senior executives installed their friends (many coming from Nortel and AT&T) as new managers, who hired entirely new teams of bad developers, without asking a single technical questions. There were a lot of really smart people at RIM, but there were even more bad people.

By 2010-2011, teams barely had time to fix bugs and performance issues. Device software could not compete on features with Apple or Google. So Mike L, instead of figuring out how to fix the software, decided to start from scratch and bought QNX to replace current OS.

After QNX acquisition, RIM divided into two camps, and senior management started internal fight that lasted over a year; it was between 'legacy' camp (BIS/BES/BBOS) and 'new guys' (QNX). There was an idea of developing two systems in parallel; then teams tried to port JVM from BBOS to QNX (sic!), which was actually demoed during BlackBerry World 2011 (eventually this was a miserable failure due to mounting technical difficulties and was abandoned, after hundreds of developers spent months on this). Then Apple came with iPad and management geniuses rushed to release a Playbook, on QNX, with no software whatsoever. Nobody internally had a clue what a strategy is and where the company is headed.

After JVM port failed, a second boneheaded decision was made. QNX - based devices would not support legacy BIS/BES protocols. IMAP and ICAL had to be implemented on top of QNX. BIS would be superfluous now. QNX would not connect to old BES so new BES would have to be written. From scratch. Old apps would not run on QNX so new ones would have to be written. Massive layoffs started; managers would now fight to death to stay relevant. Teams would not collaborate to ensure they are not obsoleted by the QNX camp and are not the next ones out the door. Projects were delayed. Mixed signals and resource reallocations led to nothing being spent on BBOS, which was pretty much frozen after (much delayed) BB7. Lack of new devices led to legacy sales falling off the cliff. From a platform of the future, BB10 now became the one and only savior.

Were the problems with BBOS? Sure. Could they be fixed? IMO, yes. There was nothing that could not be changed in the old OS. It's software. At a fraction of time and resources, if right people could have been brought in to manage software teams and make the right hires (and fires), RIM could have fixed BBOS in a year or so, while making several small, bugfix level releases like BB7, with better hardware, smaller # of device models, while preserving BIS/BES and app compatibility. Torch browser was great and was getting better and better; app situation should have been addressed by giving out $$$ to developers, and much earlier; platform and app development should have been migrated towards C++; the rest are features where RIM should have been able to catch up. It would not have stopped the decline, but decline would be much less steep if RIM would (a) avoid the uncertainty associated with new OS and financial situation, (b) maintain compatibility with old apps and features, (c) maintain connectivity with old BIS/BES and (d) regularly release devices with newer hardware and features.

Disclaimer: I used to work for RIM but I was not on BBOS. If any former RIM folks are reading this and could shed more light on BBOS story, please post. It's a sad tale of company decline and it would be good to learn its lessons.

Actually from what you describe they needed to change OS. If the internal talent was more interested in turf wars and had built BBOS into a hot mess, then it was like not going to get fixed in a timely manor. I've always found it easier to build something from scratch then have to reverse engineer and repair someone else's mess. They should have brought the Java JVM into the new OS, but sounds like Mike, and even Thor didn't have control over the monster of a company they created. Even the QNX transition was botched because they started using Adobe Air as the basis for the UI and then found out how much of a pig that was with the PlayBook.

Posted via CB10

[belfastdispatcher]

Actually from what you describe they needed to change OS. If the internal talent was more interested in turf wars and had built BBOS into a hot mess, then it was like not going to get fixed in a timely manor. I've always found it easier to build something from scratch then have to reverse engineer and repair someone else's mess. They should have brought the Java JVM into the new OS, but sounds like Mike, and even Thor didn't have control over the monster of a company they created. Even the QNX transition was botched because they started using Adobe Air as the basis for the UI and then found out how much of a pig that was with the PlayBook.

Posted via CB10

Maybe they needed to change the OS but they should've done without their customers noticing anything except performance improvements.

[lnichols]

Maybe they needed to change the OS but they should've done without their customers noticing anything except performance improvements.

I disagree. I find Bb10 much better than BBOS and I'm glad it is different from BBOS.

Posted via CB10

[extisis]

I disagree. I find Bb10 much better than BBOS and I'm glad it is different from BBOS.

Posted via CB10

i agree. out with old, in with the new. all that techy mumbo jumbo is nonsense. business is business.

[mikeo007]

They needed a new platform. A new foundation. They didn't need to create a completely new and alien experience. Newer OS releases seem to show a move back to what users liked about the old BBOS. Too bad it took them this long to realize it.