The first BlackBerry 10 smartphones are still a pretty long way away from arriving on the market, but prototype units carrying the OS will be out in the wild as soon as this May. RIM's BlackBerry Jam conference, starting on May 1st, will be where the company will distribute BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha handsets to software developers interested in making apps for the new platform. It's described as a modified version of the PlayBook OS — no surprises there, BB10 itself is expected to be a modification of that QNX-based software — and as the Alpha in the name suggests, it will be a very early build that's likely to differ materially from the final OS. The devices, too, are not going to look anything like the final retail hardware, they'll just serve as developer tools to help plant the seeds for a healthy ecosystem when RIM's new mobile OS finally launches.