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RIM reiterates BlackBerry 10 hardware plan: fewer devices, QWERTY and full touch models around the same time

RIM reiterates BlackBerry 10 hardware plan: fewer devices, QWERTY and full touch models around the same time

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RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has noted on the company's fiscal Q1 2013 earnings call that both QWERTY and full touch phones will launch around the same time.

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BlackBerry 10 Cascades on phone
BlackBerry 10 Cascades on phone

On its rather somber fiscal Q1 2013 earnings call today, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked briefly about the plan for BlackBerry 10 hardware (which has now slipped to the first calendar quarter of 2013), noting again that there's no plan to abandon what he calls the "iconic" QWERTY form factor that helped propel the company to success in the last decade. He expects both QWERTY and full touch BlackBerry 10 models to launch in "close proximity" to one another, and it sounds like there might just be one of each: there will be "fewer devices in a market at any given time," and the focus will be on the "premium smartphone segment" in both form factors. "We fully intend to lead in the QWERTY segment," Heins says. Earlier in the call, Heins pointed out that the company had seen continued strength in the Bold line, so it wouldn't be surprising to see the Bold name survive through to the BlackBerry 10 portfolio.