Similar to what Google is doing with their Android OS which is making their platform functional on all devices, RIM unveiled their next generation mobile platform called the BlackBerry BBX. BBX combines the best of the BlackBerry OS and the PlayBook’s QNX OS into one platform that will support both smartphones and tablets.
The BBX platform will include BBX-OS, and will support BlackBerry cloud services and development environments for both HTML5 and native developers. BBX will also support applications developed using any of the tools available today for the BlackBerry PlayBook ““ including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps ““ on future BBX-based tablets and smartphones.
BBX will also include the new BlackBerry Cascades UI Framework for advanced graphics, and bring “œSuper App” capabilities to enable many advanced capabilities including deep integration between apps, always-on Push services, the BBM Social Platform, and much more.
Here’s a demo of BlackBerry Cascades Framework being used on the PlayBook:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAKu0aVBHgQ
It’s nice to hear that Android apps will soon be running on smartphones as well but what’s not clear is if this BlackBerry BBX would also apply to the current BlackBerry 7 handsets. We can safely assume that phones that cannot upgrade to BlackBerry 7 (I’m looking at the old Torch, Curve and Bold) won’t be able to upgrade to BBX as well.
