RIM Goes Official with the New BlackBerry BBX Platform

Today, Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion announced the availability of a new mobile operating system aimed at its mobile devices, namely the BlackBerry BBX platform. 

The new OS is based on the BlackBerry platform and also takes advantage of the QNX OS to keep people, devices, content and services connected.

BBX represents the next generation mobile platform, set to run on the company's new BlackBerry smartphones, as well as on its tablet PCs. 

RIM claims that the new OS flavor will be capable to provide users with a great mobile experience, since it brings along the best in two platforms, namely BlackBerry OS and QNX. 

“With nearly 5 million BlackBerry apps downloaded daily, our customers have made BlackBerry one of the most profitable platforms for developers,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at RIM. 

“At DevCon today, we’re giving developers the tools they need to build richer applications and we’re providing direction on how to best develop their smartphone and tablet apps as the BlackBerry and QNX platforms converge into our next generation BBX platform.”

The new BBX platform will include the BBX-OS, and will also offer support for BlackBerry cloud services, as well as for the building of both native applications and HTML5-based ones. 

Moreover, the new OS flavor will arrive with support for the applications built using tools available for the BlackBerry PlayBook, such as Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5, or the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

BBX also comes with the new BlackBerry Cascades UI Framework that enables advanced graphics, which is also meant at offering “Super App” capabilities that translate into deep integration between apps, support for the BBM Social Platform, always-on Push services, and more. 

RIM also announced the release of a new version of the BlackBerry WebWorks for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, as well as of additional developer tools. 

Among them, we can count the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook, or the new developer beta of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, which offers support for applications developed for the Android operating system.

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