RIM chief hints at wider BB OS 6 rollout

RIM looking for wider scale rollout of BB OS 6
RIM looking for wider scale rollout of BB OS 6

RIM's UK MD, Stephen Bates, has told TechRadar that the company plans to roll out the next generation platform to more smartphones than previously thought.

The new BlackBerry OS 6 platform, which currently only resides on the BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry Bold 9780 in the UK, was supposed to be heading only to certain legacy models, namely the

BlackBerry Bold 9700

.

But Bates, speaking to TechRadar to discuss RIM's recent smartphone success, told us that the company was looking at a larger-scale rollout:

"The BlackBerry Torch has been a great success for us, a lot of people are choosing it, partly thanks to the new BlackBerry OS 6 platform."

Expansion

"We'll be expanding BB OS 6 across more devices, namely we will be enabling our 3G devices [with the new platform]."

Bates' comments seem a little surprising, as under this promise even the BlackBerry Bold 9000, which is nearly two years old and only sports 128MB of RAM, will be getting the update.

UPDATE: It looks our suspicions were confirmed: Bold 9000 users - which we can't imagine number that many any more - will miss out on the update, as RIM has just contacted us to say only the Curve 3G, the Pearl 3G and the aforementioned Bold 9700 are getting the OS 6 juicing.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.