Will RIM really sell its hardware division as speculated?

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has been quoted as saying in a recent report that they were considering selling the company’s hardware division after the launch of new BalckBerry 10. He voiced this possibility in an interview with a German newspaper.

Heins said that while nothing was final yet, they were mulling at options ahead of them; other than selling their hardware division, there was also a possibility of leasing their software. However, he was quick to point that they didn’t have to take any decision just yet and were keen to see how BalckBerry 10 fares. They have a strong belief in the new OS and are bullish of its success, as they feel it will be able to give tough competition to both Android and iOS. RIM has been enduring losses and has trained its hope on BB10 that will hopefully resurrect its position in the market. With the BB10 launch already nearing, RIM’s shares have picked up, which is a good sign for the Canadian manufacturer.

A few leaked screens of BB10 OS

While over the years speculations have been rife about RIM planning to sell either its hardware or lease out its software division, so far nothing has come out of it. And the statement made by Heins clearly indicates that while RIM is mulling several options, there is no reason to jump guns—it all now depends on the kind of response BB10 receives.

Also, RIM has rebranded its app store ahead of BB10 launch by dropping the word app from its name. So what was formerly the BlackBerry App World has now been rechristened BlackBerry World. The official blog confirming the change states that the name change reflects a shift in the type of things one could purchase from the store, leading to the transition to BlackBerry 10 and beyond. The rationale behind dropping the word app is that the store will now also include downloadable videos and music. It aims to be one-stop shop for all the mobile entertainment needs.    

BlackBerry has also been working towards strengthening its store and over the past couple of months, it has held several competitions for developers to encourage them to develop apps for BB10. Apart from providing developers with BB10 alpha devices, one strategic move was opening up all the APIs, which facilitates native app integration and thereby making it more useful to the end user. RIM has introduced the Built for BlackBerry certification to help developers differentiate their app from the rest. Going beyond the smoke test, RIM now has a process in place to test the efficiency of the app, based on which the certificate is granted.