RIM CEO confident to claim No.3 spot

Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins spoke out at the press briefing at the BlackBerry Jam event. He said that betting everything on the upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system would allow the company to grow their user base again in the United States and North America.

Research In Motion have been losing ground against Samsung, Microsoft and Apple but Heins is not downbeat about the company future. he said “We have a clear shot at being the No. 3 platform in the market. Carriers want other platforms. And we're not just another open platform running on another system. We're BlackBerry.”

For the company to take the number 3 spot they would need to pass Symbian, who current hold this position. Android and iOS are the top mobile platforms and are in no danger of losing their position.

Heins said that developers are keen to build applications for the Blackberry base of 80 million users worldwide and that their upcoming '10' OS is the most ‘productive' version of the operating system to date. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlsahuZ_4oM']

Little information has been released on the operating system to this point apart from the fact that it will be released in the first quarter of 2013.

Heins added “BlackBerry 10 is on track. Our sales forces are getting ready. Better devices are in testing.”

He spoke after a two hour demonstration of the new Blackberry 10 platform which uses a system they are calling ‘Peek'. This interface allows for quick switching between apps, notifications and messages. The demonstration was marred however as engineers handling the presentation seemed to have problems getting swipe gestures to work. Sometimes it took them two or three ‘swipes' to get the operating system to change function as required. Clearly some work still for the company before release.

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