RIM addressed the future of its BlackBerry Java platform when it transitions to its next-generation BBX operating system, acknowledging that existing apps developed for BlackBerry will not be supported by the new OS.

In a blog post, Alec Saunders, VP of developer relations and ecosystem development for the company, said that “after further investigation we decided against supporting BlackBerry Java on BlackBerry BBX,” noting that the performance delivered “would ultimately not satisfy us, our development community, or our customers as the platform continues to evolve.”

Despite the fact that the BlackBerry Java platform is now an evolutionary dead-end, RIM said that the strategy does “absolutely not” mark the end of its Java development environment. It said that “there are more BlackBerry 7 smartphones yet to come and our customer base will not switch overnight to BlackBerry BBX smartphones; both platforms will co-exist for some time.”

RIM is currently promoting its WebWorks SDK, which uses technologies including JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS, as the path to creating apps which work across current and future BlackBerry devices. Two other cross-platform development environments are also available across platforms: Adobe’s AIR, and the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

Simultaneously, RIM announced an update to the BlackBerry Java SDK v7.0 and BlackBerry Java Development Environment v7.0. It said that this offers updates to the API documentation, code samples and an auto-complete feature.