‘RIM-director wanted to cheap Androids with BlackBerry services’

The former managing director of BlackBerry-maker RIM, Jim Balsillie, wanted to providers to make arrangements to have cheap smartphones with BlackBerry services. The new director of RIM blew the plan, however, before it was introduced.

This would include services such as BlackBerry Messenger and the data compression method of RIM available on other smartphones. The BlackBerry-maker was in talks with T-Mobile and Vodafone, reports Reuters, which based on some sources from the manufacturer.

The idea was to smartphones with access to RIM’s proprietary BlackBerry Internet Service. The cheap smartphones would therefore not have full internet access, but only be able to make use of Facebook and Twitter. The service had probably never been in the Netherlands can be rolled out, because he is in conflict with net neutrality, which in the Netherlands is probably by 2013 required by law.

It is unclear who the cheap smartphones, but given the deal was probably to cheap models with Android, which carriers sell under their own name. These models are made by Chinese manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei, although providers in the recent time also more common with smaller companies in China. Reuters is reporting not on what operating system the smartphones would be running, but virtually all the cheap smartphones that providers under own name sell are Android devices.

The provision of services via smartphones on other platforms would be a change in the strategy have served. Last year, there were rumors that RIM BlackBerry Messenger wanted to open up to the competitors with WhatsApp. Other members of the board of RIM, saw nothing in the plan, and whistled the director back. That cleared up not much later in the field. The new ceo, Thorsten Heins, would see nothing in the plan, and prefer to focus on the new operating system BlackBerry 10, that about two weeks is presented.