Following up on yesterday's earnings report, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins sat down for an interview with CNBC. We're still moving forward to the BlackBerry 10 launch at full force, however RIM is being analyzed on all levels regarding their financials and what's next before the launch. During the interview, Heins first talked a bit about service revenue and reiterated that they're not going anywhere. (Service revenues are the fees to which carriers and companies are charged for BIS/BES use.) While RIM will be offering new services with BlackBerry 10, the current service revenues won't be going away.
"We are transitioning. We are not stopping, we are not halting, we are not disrupting. We are transitioning .. towards the next generation of BlackBerry devices and services". Heins stated that he's very satisfied with the reported results and feels that the transition to BlackBerry 10 is "prepared well and is going to be executed well".
While he notes that the transition is going to take one-and-a-half to two years to execute, Heins also says that sales of BlackBerry 7 devices are still very strong in many regions. A full transition from BlackBerry 7 to BlackBerry 10 could take "several quarters" and BlackBerry 7 devices will still remain a large part of the BlackBerry portfolio as well as the service revenues that come with them.
BES 10 will be rolled out with the first devices in fiscal Q1, and the QWERTY device (N-series) will be rolled out "as quickly as possible" as well. "Expect the time difference between the QWERTY device and full touch to be a few weeks probably". The first BlackBerry 10 devices (the BlackBerry Z10) will be shipped in fiscal Q4 "in volume" into the US and global markets following the January 30th launch event.
On the topic of apps, Heins says that RIM feels good about both the quality and quantity of applications that will populate BlackBerry World for BlackBerry 10.
And WTF is up with that d-bag at the end of the interview? Props to Thorsten for not teeing off on him (I sure would have). #BB10Believe
Check the original post at CNBC for more inlcuding the full interview video.
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