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RIM chief Thorsten Heins says in an interview<\/a> that his company may license the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system to third parties. Here is the key quote:<\/p>\n We don\u2019t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused platform. To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it. There\u2019s different options we could do that we\u2019re currently investigating.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He goes on to talk about:<\/p>\n \u2026 us building a reference system, and then basically licensing that reference design, have others build the hardware around it \u2013 either it\u2019s a BlackBerry or it\u2019s something else being built on the BlackBerry platform<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The big question: would the likes of Samsung and Sony leap to manufacture BlackBerry OS smartphones when they can offer Android for free?<\/p>\n A more nuanced question: even if OEMs were to license BlackBerry OS, to what extent would they really get behind it, as opposed to cranking out a few devices to see how they went? The latter is what happened to Windows Phone 7, with the exception of Nokia late in the day.<\/p>\n Samsung manufactures Windows Phone 7 devices, but you would hardly know it, since it is the Android-based Galaxy range that gets all its attention.<\/p>\n Another problem for RIM is negotiating the tricky waters of both manufacturing devices and licensing the OS to others. Apple did not enjoy having third-party manufacturers like Power Computing, Radius and Motorola release Mac clones. Here is what Walter Isaacson writes in his biography of Steve Jobs:<\/p>\n Apple got an $80 fee for each computer sold, but instead of expanding the market, the cloners cannibalized the sales of Apple\u2019s own high-end computers on which it made up to $500 in profit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Microsoft is now coming at this from the opposite end, going into hardware manufacturing with the Surface, which is another interesting experiment.<\/p>\n Still, listen carefully to what Heins is saying. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year.\u201d It is not just a matter of coming up with a fantastic mobile operating system or even a fantastic device; it is all about ecosystem, as Nokia boss Stephen Elop stated 18 months ago. RIM\u2019s ecosystem is in decline, and the company will explore every avenue in trying to turn that around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RIM chief Thorsten Heins says in an interview that his company may license the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system to third parties. Here is the key quote: We don\u2019t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year. We have to differentiate and have a focused … Continue reading RIM hints at move to license BlackBerry 10 OS to third parties<\/span> \n
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