How RIM is steering BlackBerry toward QNX
How RIM is steering BlackBerry toward QNX | Mobile Devices | ZDNet UK
By this it is evident that RIM is playing the game very safe by bringing the key pieces of the puzzle with surgical precision. Voice, email, messaging/communications, security, multitasking and multi-media are the key modules that are very important to any mobile OS and which usually takes a longer time to develop and test. RIM is planning it intelligently solving 3 important things of the puzzle namely OS multitasking, multimedia, and internet with playbook and next they are bringing on the other key ingredients which made the Blackberry a success namely email, voice and security. Some may argue why not native PIM apps in C/C++ but there are some key things which RIM cannot risk like proven secured communications, onboard encryption of data(no other platform today provides this feature), data compression, enterprise (BES/BIS) backward compatibility, timelines etc. As Jim B pointed out that transition is the place where companies are doomed and the major lesson learnt from all the failures is that those companies failed to maintain continuity/back compatibility of their old OS like in the case of Palm or now WP7(no enterprise compatibility at all).
What this means is that QNX OS on phones is a given for BB World 2012. Playbook is providing RIM a early platform to test the waters, take user feedback, and more importantly confidence by gaining user and developer interest.