So I was thinking to myself... why not purchase a blackberry? (especially the candy-bar new ones)

I asked my roomate about it and he tells me, "Dont get a blackberry man... Their getting phased out."

I asked him what he meant by that, and he tells me, "Their OS is going to phased out... Were not going to use that OS anymore in the future."

Is this true?

Can anyone give me a brief synopsis or a pro-con list of Blackberry's?

First of all... your friend is misinformed.

Why BlackBerry? Click here.

Looking for more info on BlackBerry then check out this link.

Also there is a lot of information here on Howard Forums. Do a search and you should find some of the basic info that may help you.

hm... okeys.. will do.

thanks.

Also your thread title could have been more descriptive.

i can see myself getting blacklisted already....

Tell your friend their FOS and not to speak to what they don't know nor understand...

Do you guys live in a cave?

more or less.

we live in the army.

...just get a blackberry already would you! 8700, my choice...

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Ask ur roommate to show you some links to talk about rim os would be phased out in the future. I am interested to know where and how he got the info.

Ask urself a question: how often you would get a new phone? My answer to it is 6 months to 1 year. If it is going to be phased out in the future, I dun care since I am going to enjoy it now as I am posting it in my car using my new bb 8700g

You need to stop asking your roommate anything. I would not even get in a car with him behind the wheel!

He is dumber than dumb!

Good heavens say your kidding? One of the core reasons the BlackBerry is so widely used by the military and gov't for that matter is its security. You may want to question your roomates advice?

Haha...yea BB's are great with security..every time I go to my mother's work on the base there are always people walking around in bdu's with BB's attached to their hips

although I'll probably be pounced upon.

Your' roomate is sort of right.

There has been much discussion and speculation about the future BlackBerry OS road-map.

Whether Symbian will be used or other options - and whether a different OS and CPU will be used.


While this is speculation - it did get some investor and BlackBerry 'groupie' press. It may have been this that your roommate heard.

PHT

RIM to Go Symbian?
09.05.06

Could Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM - message board; Toronto: RIM) move its market-leading BlackBerry devices to the Symbian Ltd. operating system in the near future?

That's the prediction of a new report from Nomura Holdings Inc. , which notes that RIM's current in-house OS will reach the end of the road, in terms of the processing power that can be squeezed out of it, within three years. Nomura analyst Richard Windsor contends that a partnership between RIM and Symbian on future generations of the BlackBerry OS could benefit both companies. He feels the Ontario-based mobile email giant has no more than 18 to 24 months to move to a new platform in the dog-eat-dog enterprise smartphone market.

Chief RIM rival Palm Inc. also faces a period of transition for its mobile OS, as deadline disputes threaten the platform partnership between the Treo-maker and PalmSource Inc. (Nasdaq: PSRC - message board), which controls the Palm OS.

RIM has traditionally enjoyed high margins on its handsets -- up to 50 percent gross, according to Windsor -- because it doesn't use an additional applications processor in the BlackBerry. This could, however, leave RIM in "deep trouble" as the market starts to demand the processing power to handle tasks such as viewing and editing office documents on mobile devices, the Nomura analyst claims.

In order to build more powerful devices, RIM would need to completely rebuild its software -- a costly endeavor that could take years and allow key rivals such as Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT - message board) to eat into its core enterprise business.

Therefore, it would be more cost-effective for RIM to port its software to an agnostic operating system, and Symbian -- which currently has the lion's share of the mobile-OS market -- is the logical choice.

Gartner Inc. analyst Todd Kort agrees that it may make sense for RIM to consider Symbian, particularly in the European market. "As RIM moves deeper into the consumer market with products like the new 'Pearl,' it would make sense for RIM to test the European market with a few Symbian-based models," Kort tells Unstrung.

"Symbian accounted for about 71 percent of worldwide smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2006 and serves the consumer market well," Kort notes. "Microsoft, Palm, and RIM each accounted for only about 3 percent of smartphone shipments in the second quarter, with Linux accounting for the remaining 19 percent."

Indeed, some industry observers see mobile Linux as RIM's path to the future. "I’d bet on them going to a Linux OS before going to Symbian," says Jack Gold of J.Gold Associates. "But even this is probably not in the cards in the short term, as Linux still has a way to go for higher-end devices."

Gold suggests that RIM is less likely to move to the Symbian platform, simply because the major shareholder in Symbian is rival device-maker Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK - message board).

Windsor, on the other hand, argues that Nokia "wants more commitment from others... I think it would welcome RIM." The analyst contends that Linux is not an option for the Canadian vendor because the security infrastructure is not yet in place around the open-source code. In fact, he describes present-day mobile Linux as "totally unsecured."

RIM officials did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung