There have been mixed messages with regard to Research In Motion’s (RIM’s) plans to migrate to a new operating system for its BlackBerry smartphones, following the company’s announcement this week of its first new device to use an alternative platform – the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. According to reports, a RIM executive told a group at the vendor’s 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference that a transition to a platform based on technology from QNX, an embedded systems company which RIM acquired earlier in 2010, is on the cards, using a tweaked version of the tablet OS optimised for handsets. InformationWeek said that RIM “isn’t confirming or denying anything,” although the company has not long released the latest version of its handset platform, BlackBerry OS 6, and is unlikely to want to detract from this with talks of future variations.

It is probably not a question of whether RIM is going to move to a QNX-based platform, but when: while BlackBerry OS is currently holding up well, it does lack some of the sparkle delivered by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, and it clearly acquired QNX for a reason beyond its embedded systems heritage. The main issue for the company is the installed base of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, used in large corporations globally to power mobile data services. These customers will need to be assured that their investments have been protected, and large enterprises are also not known for welcoming rapid changes in technologies – it may make sense for RIM to communicate its platform plans sooner, rather than later. In addition, with RIM having gone to great lengths to woo the developer community, this group is also likely to want a clear idea of the company’s roadmap – the idea that it may be planning a major technology change would certainly cause uncertainty over the long-term viability of future BlackBerry apps. Interestingly, RIM has gone to great lengths to promote the use of standard Web tools for the creation of BlackBerry software, which would certainly ease portability between platforms.