BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. unveiled a newoperating system Tuesday in hopes of grabbing some attention away from theiPhone and Android phones.
The new BBX system combines existing BlackBerry elementswith RIM's previously announced QNX operating system for phones and tabletcomputers.
RIM said BBX will incorporate the reliability and securityfeatures of QNX — which RIM snagged in 2010 by purchasing QNX Software Systems.It will also enable software developers to create more advanced, dynamic appsfor the devices.
The Canadian company gave few details about the software anddid not say when devices using it would be available. The company previouslysaid that it would offer phones running QNX software in 2012.
RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis introduced BBX on Tuesday at thecompany's annual developer conference in San Francisco.
He began his remarks by speaking briefly about the serviceoutages that frustrated tens of millions of BlackBerry users last week. He saidthe company restored service as quickly as possible and is working on figuringout the causes and "making this right" for BlackBerry usersworldwide. On Monday, BlackBerry tried to soothe customers by offering morethan $100 worth of free software to each one and giving some a month oftechnical support.
The disruption came as RIM, once dominant in smartphoneswith its secure BlackBerry email service, has been losing ground to moreconsumer-friendly offerings such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and smartphones runningGoogle Inc.'s Android software.
RIM has sold 165 million BlackBerrys through August. Applehad sold 146 million iPhones as of September, but its device has been on the marketfor a much shorter amount of time.
RIM has also lagged in the market for apps that run onsmartphones and tablets. Its BlackBerry App World, which includes apps for itssmartphones and its PlayBook tablet computer, includes more than 46,000 apps.That is just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of apps offered for theiPhone and Android phones.
RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, is trying toencourage developers to be more prolific, though, by showing off new softwareTuesday that makes it easier to build apps and get them into the company'sonline store.
The company's stock rose 81 cents, or 3.6 percent, to closeat $23.21.