RIM's full name may be Research in Motion, but that motion's looking pretty slow right about now. The company's conference call to discuss the earnings it reported today included the devastating news that there won't be any BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012. You'll recall that the BlackBerry London device that leaked out last month was also rumored to be launching in Q3 2012, so this new statement from RIM is an official confirmation of that speculative roadmap. More specifically, the investor call included reference to the need for a "highly integrated dual-core LTE platform," which RIM has identified in a chipset that won't be available until mid-2012. That means we're looking at "the latter part of calendar 2012" as the launch window for BlackBerry 10 phones. Sorry, BB fans, your QNX smartphone won't be coming any time soon.

Here's the quote from co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in full:

"Before I turn the call over to Brian to discuss the financials, I would like to provide an update on the timing of BlackBerry 10 smartphones. As I said on the last earnings call, we are focused on delivering a high-quality, fully-featured user experience when these products are launched. This means having a well-developed ecosystem of applications and services, as well as having the hardware specifications, industrial design, and application features that will meet the expectations of consumers in the competitive US market.

"To achieve this goal, we need a highly integrated dual-core LTE platform. The processor we selected offers industry-leading power and efficiency that also allows us to deliver the industrial design that we believe is critical to success in this market segment. This chipset will not be available until mid-2012, and as a result of this and certain other factors, we now expect our first BlackBerry 10 smartphone to come to market in the latter part of calendar 2012.

"In the meantime, we believe our strong BlackBerry 7 portfolio will continue to drive adoption of BlackBerry around the world. We also believe there’s an opportunity to accelerate adoption in the United States through the aggressive marketing and promotional programs we discussed earlier, as well as marketing designed to drive adoption of services such as BBM and Mobile Fusion. We ask for your patience and confidence, and look forward to reporting further progress in the coming quarters."