RIM announced the location and time of their Jan. 30 BlackBerry 10 event. For the struggling Canadian company, it's basically now or never.
The long-awaited event will start at 8:30 a.m. EST (that's 5:30 a.m. PST, ouch!) in New York. If you're a die-hard BlackBerry fan, getting up before dawn to see the latest and greatest might not seem like that big of a deal, but RIM needs to court those outside its loyal following. Having an event that early, while good for Europe, Africa and the East Coast is a tough sell to anyone west of Ohio.
Timing aside, if this event and the products announced there don't resonate with customers, both casual and business, this could be the final nail in RIM's coffin even if the world does tune in on the 30th.
The company that put e-mail in the pockets of consumers began losing market share after the introduction of the iPhone and Android operating system. The company's former co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie were replaced by current CEO Thorsten Heins in January 2012. Heins went on to replace the the entire leadership team in order to refocus and streamline the company.
The upcoming operating system and accompanying devices had originally been scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2012, but were pushed to the first quarter of 2013. If RIM can pull this off, it'll be one of the great comebacks in technology. If not, the company could end up sharing the same page in the history books as Palm.
