RIM announces new name to replace ill-fated BBX

David Heath
Thursday, 08 December 2011 12:50

IT Industry - Strategy

BBX is dead.  Long live Blackberry 10.

Following the recent court action by BASIS - a small software developer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, RIM (the developer of the Blackberry range of mobile devices) has been temporarily barred from using the name BBX to describe its latest QNX-derived operating system.

Specifically (and quite painfully) RIM had been barred with perhaps only a day's notice from using the name at the developers'' conference currently occurring in Singapore.

According to a press release RIM had refused to stop using the contested name at the developer conference, forcing BASIS to seek the Temporary Restraining Order.

With little prospect of prevailing in this dispute, RIM has now announced that the 'product formerly known as BBX' will now simply be known as Blackberry 10 (strange that 'X' is the Roman numeral for 10, isn't it!  Do you perhaps think that BBX might have been an abbreviation for Blackberry 10 all along?).  This follows from the previous version of Blackberry 7; RIM attempting to gain some kudos for the multiple numbering step to indicate the significance of the new version.

Once the darling of the mobile warrior, RIM's Blackberry range of devices is steadily losing ground to the various iPhone incarnations and the surge of Android-powered devices.  Although a misstep, this will probably have little effect upon the company (aside from the money for branding and legal fees poured down the drain, of course).