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Given that success, it once seemed unfathomable that RIM wouldn’t easily be one of the world’s top 5 smartphone makers, yet in 2012 it barely held on to the fifth spot as Samsung, Apple, Nokia and HTC sold more smartphones. Put in perspective: RIM’s 32.5 million smartphones sold all year were easily trumped by Apple 47.8 million handsets sold in the final quarter of 2012 alone.

As quickly as RIM’s BlackBerry rose to the top in the first half of the last decade, it just as quickly fell behind the touchscreen smartphone revolution started by Apple in 2007. Now, after several years of losing market share and stalling growth of its BlackBerry subscriber base, RIM is rebooting the product line this week with the debut of BlackBerry 10.

Not the first time for a comeback effort

This isn’t the first of RIM’s attempts to compete with the current crop of smartphones. 2008 saw RIM debut the BlackBerry Storm, an all touch device that created little more than a drizzle in the market. In 2010, the company launched the BlackBerry Torch 9800 along with the BlackBerry 6 operating system and a WebKit browser. But after using an evaluation device, I felt — as did others, based on meager sales — the Torch was an evolution of the same old BlackBerry experience, not the revolution that RIM really needed at the time.

Aware that it needed something new for the future, that same year saw RIM purchase QNX Software Solutions from Harman International. At the time, QNX was used for many in-car information and entertainment systems. RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet was the first RIM product to use a QNX-based platform and while it was good at what it did, the slate was missing key features: A native email client for one, and direct access to RIM’s popular BBM messaging service.

Amid those feature misses and lackluster sales, I suggested that RIM made a mistake by putting QNX on a tablet before using it to power BlackBerry smartphones. In hindsight, however, it appears that RIM had little choice: It was reportedly having problems getting the BBM service on PlayBooks because the service is limited to a single device per user. And it took nearly a year to get a native email app on the tablet. It appears to me now — as it did then — that RIM was simply trying to beat others into the nascent and quickly growing tablet market that began in earnest with the iPad in 2010. As a result, it launched a product well before perfecting the experience.

So why is this time different?

We’ll know more after Wednesday’s BB 10 launch in New York City, but hints of potential success for RIM are popping up all over the web. First up is the hardware, expected to be two initial handsets; one with a physical keyboard and one, dubbed the Z10, without. From the various leaked images and video of what’s likely a developer phone model in use, they appear perfectly capable and comparable in performance to other high-end smartphones available today.

What about the operating system? Considering that RIM originally planned to have a new platform on phones by early 2012, it has had an extra year to work on BB 10. That year proved tumultuous with the co-CEOs stepping down, market share dropping, pleas to developers to stay the course and barely any growth in BlackBerry subscribers. From the little bit of BB 10 I’ve seen so far, however, the wait may be worth it.

Expect to hear much about BlackBerry Flow at the launch event: This is RIM’s tightly integrated method of quickly navigating through the operating system in a consistent manner. BlackBerry Hub is the centralized communications center while the BlackBerry software keyboard should provide for fast, accurate entry.

There’s more to smartphone success than hardware and the OS, however. It seems like RIM has also learned the lesson that mobile apps and content deals are also important. On the app side, the company has put enormous effort into courting developers, even poking fun at itself in a music video. (Hear what RIM’s Alec Saunders has to say about that in our podcast interview.)

As a result, tens of thousands of apps are likely to be available once the new devices launch. And just today, RIM shared details of its unified content store, listing out all of the media partners, along with news of next-day television content availability. Add in support from carriers — all four major operators in the US plan to sell the new BlackBerry devices — and the puzzle pieces of potential are all there.

The most likely outcome

What are the odds that Research In Motion has a hit with the new BlackBerry 10 devices? I’ll have a better idea when I attend the launch event, of course — and I’ll be live-blogging from there — but based on the limited information I have so far, RIM should at least be staying in the smartphone game.

As I’ve said to many over the past few months, the new devices should appeal to current BlackBerry owners. My unanswered question now is: Will there be enough to sway people away from iOS and Android phones? Until we know more, I think it’s a safe bet that RIM keeps its current user-base happy and possibly steals some market share from its peers.

Either way, if RIM delivers what I expect in BB 10, it stays relevant in a market where nearly 6 billion people don’t yet have a smartphone. There’s much growth to be found yet, even if BB 10 doesn’t unseat the current smartphone incumbents. But even with the right recipe and ingredients, there’s no guarantees for RIM. Challenges still loom for the company as whole and maintaining a sliver of market share may not be enough for the long road ahead.

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As the year winds down, Heins is feeling better. “It’s fascinating to see how RIM has evolved in the last 10 months,” he said in an interview Thursday in downtown San Francisco.

BlackBerry 10 handsets, delayed several times already as RIM tries to perfect the device that will have to save the company, are on track for a January launch. New, decisive leaders are in place throughout the organization who are “being honest” with employees — a new concept at RIM — and a semblance of a plan for 2013 has emerged that banks on Heins’ belief that wireless carriers are sick of Apple and Samsung dominating the smartphone market.

RIM hopes to keep up its strong but low-margin performance in countries outside the U.S., regain the confidence of the US smartphone buyer with the BlackBerry 10 handsets, and eventually transition into a true “mobile computing” company that offers phones, tablets, medical devices, connected cars, and all manner of smart connected devices we commonly refer to as the internet of things.

It sounds good on paper. But the challenges are mighty: even assuming that RIM launches BlackBerry 10 handsets without incident in early February and they are well received by the critics, it has been a long time since most people in the U.S. with even a passing interest in smartphones thought about buying a BlackBerry. Unless those folks spend their money with RIM, Heins’ dreams of a mobile computing future may never get off the ground.

So what’s the short-term plan for recapturing the US? “You cannot be a leader without being in the U.S.” Heins said, hastily adding “North America” in a nod to his company’s home country. He thinks that U.S. carriers are salivating at the chance to offer RIM handsets because they offer “choice” that carriers currently don’t have; wireless carriers aren’t crazy about getting the lion’s share of their smartphones from just two companies.

“Android is mostly dominated by Samsung,” he said, adding “my prediction is that Samsung will basically be the strongest player in Windows 8.” Other handset makers can’t compete with Samsung’s in-house advantage in sourcing processors and displays from corporate siblings, Heins said.

RIM is the only other smartphone company that offers unique hardware and software in one package, Heins said. Microsoft may be poised to change that equation should it release its own smartphone, which seems more and more likely, but Heins believes that carriers are happy to see RIM back with a competitive product, and that the same kind of aggressive promotion that made Android a success can help BlackBerry 10.

The details of how that plan will unfold are apparently not ready for public consumption. RIM has spent a great deal of time and money this year convincing software developers that it is ready and willing to help them become successful on BlackBerry 10, but it’s these carrier relationships that will be crucial to RIM’s chances of coming back in the market. Heins declined to share 2013 shipment goals for BlackBerry 10: obviously, RIM has internal goals for the product, but a lot of what will happen with device shipments is “governed by our carriers. It’s not all in our hands.”

Heins drew some flak earlier this year for being quoted as saying “we have a clear shot at being number three” in the smartphone market, as if he weren’t setting his goals high enough.

“Make no mistake, my aspiration is to win,” he said Thursday. “But I can’t sit here in front of investors and partners and say we will be number one.”

What Heins is trying to do is shift the mobile playing field away from smartphones and toward the internet of things, or the spread of intelligent hardware, software and connectivity into everyday devices. That’s the market in which he thinks RIM has an advantage:

“iOS is five years old. At the end of the day it is a downsized PC OS. Look, they did a great job. My point is I’m ahead of them, I have a true mobile computing platform.”

If Heins is to ever make that claim stick, however, he’s going to have to convince a lot of people who have been buying that downsized PC OS for years to switch back to the BlackBerry in 2013.

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At the SAE Convergence conference, RIM’s software subsidiary QNX unveiled the new software developer kit (SDK) for its forthcoming connected car application platform, which QNX simply calls Car 2. The platform is an extension of RIM’s BlackBerry WebWorks HTML5 framework, so a developer building an app for the BlackBerry 10 platform could use the exact same HTML and JavaScript tools to create apps for Car 2.

Emulating the smartphone development environment, QNX plans to expose connected car application programming interfaces (APIs) such as to GPS and navigation, car stereo and multimedia functions and even the climate control systems. Finally, QNX plans to launch the equivalent of App World for the car – a central marketplace where developers can upload their apps and buyers can purchase them.

The big difference: in the case of the connected car, those buyers aren’t car owners. They’re the automakers. Because of safety issues of a device platform moving at 60 mph, all connected car platform makers are putting up a lot more barriers between developer and consumer.

While the policy makes sense, as highly distracting apps could cause highway accidents, it’s also slowed the pace of development in cars to a crawl. Most connected car platforms out there only have a handful of apps, and for the most part automakers have leaned toward audio streaming apps like Pandora and Stitcher, as well as navigation and mapping services.

Still, by creating a development platform that bridges the smartphone and car infotainment worlds, RIM is making it easier for potential developer partners to experiment in the connected car space. And while RIM’s fortunes are declining in the smartphone market, QNX is still a powerhouse in automotive. Its software powers the infotainment, instrument and telematics systems of over 200 makes and models of vehicles.

Car 2 is meant to be the next generation of its automotive strategy, opening up its software to a much larger development community and creating a much more powerful platform for apps and services. On Tuesday, RIM also announced it was working with Nvidia to integrate the latter’s Tegra processors into Car 2-based infotainment systems.

BlackBerry developers hoping to take a crack at Car 2 will have to wait a little longer though. The platform itself will debut among automakers in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter of 2013, RIM will launch the app marketplace and make the SDK available to “qualified” developers. There’s no word yet if it plans to open up the program to all comers.

Mouse car image courtesy of Shutterstock user Mopic

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Phone Scoop noted that at this morning’s keynote session RIM CEO Thorstein Heins explained that BlackBerry 7 and BB 10 aren’t compatible platforms and that apps written for the current platform won’t work directly on the new one. This isn’t a complete surprise as RIM has been retooling its software ever since it purchased QNX in April of 2010; the company’s PlayBook tablet runs on QNX. But it certainly makes RIM’s “reboot” a little more challenge.

Palm and Microsoft have recently tried this type of reboot and we know that didn’t work out for Palm. It’s too early to say whether or not the strategy of new phones for new software will help Microsoft’s efforts. So there’s already at least one, if not two, precedents suggesting that a complete device reinvention is risky at best.

The problem is that carriers and consumers are firmly entrenched in the iOS and Android mindset, not to mention the ecosystem of both. In order to win customers over, does it make more sense to challenge the incumbents by updating current hardware or forcing customers to take another chance by investing in new hardware? Obviously, the former is the preferred choice. And this strategy could even hurt BlackBerry sales over the next 6 to 9 months as customers realize their device will be considered a legacy one before year end.

Again, this news isn’t a complete surprise, but it suggests that RIM’s strategy for the past two years has been short-sighted. As soon as it purchased QNX and began to build its new smartphone platform, the company should have thought farther out. Instead it debuted a stop-gap solution with BlackBerry 7 last year and also focused on tablet software in lieu of smartphones.

Had RIM skipped the PlayBook and devoted more resources to its phones, the BB 10 time-table might have been moved up. Instead, RIM is late to the game and asking customers to pay the price in the form of new handsets.

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Heins said he was open to licensing the BlackBerry 10 platform set to appear at the end of this year but is focused now on strengthening RIM’s integrated smartphone model.

“I don’t think there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving, we are evolving our tactics . . . this is not a seismic change, this is scaling the company further,” Heins said.

He said the company needs to focus on being more marketing driven as well as communicating to customers, especially consumers. Heins also mentioned he is looking to fill the open chief marketing officer position as soon as possible and wants someone who can listen as well as communicate and take RIM’s marketing up a notch.

Heins said RIM also needs to execute better on innovation. He thinks there needs to be a more orderly process of achieving innovation and then building a product, so the innovation discoveries can be applied to prototypes, not products in the midst of development. Heins, who was most recently the chief operating officer for Product and Sales, said he was not held back previously as COO.

One thing Heins is not interested in doing is separating RIM’s businesses. He said the company’s strength is in its integrated approach to hardware, software and ecosystem, drawing a comparison to Apple. He touted QNX, the basis of both the PlayBook operating system and the BlackBerry 10 smartphone platform, saying it could be applied to other markets beyond tablets and smartphones. He also touted QNX’s ability to handle true multitasking and said it will be able to run Android apps, which should address questions about the number of apps available on BlackBerry devices.

Heins also added that he was interested in building up a culture to empower employees to take appropriate decisions, take risks and be accountable for their decisions.

Again, this isn’t much different than the comments put out on Sunday night by Heins. But it again shows what RIM’s priorities are. The company doesn’t see a big problem on its hands, just something that a little more efficiency, innovation and marketing will solve. I hope that attitude is Heins’ way of being more deferential to former CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, because it seems like the company needs more than that to really compete.

There doesn’t seem to be a real sense of urgency on the part of Heins, and that could be a problem. RIM is falling behind, and it needs to transform itself quickly. If you have any doubt, just look at Nokia over the past few years: It may have had the right strategy, but it took far too long to execute it.

Heins seems to believe that RIM is going to be fine because it has an integrated approach, just like that “other fruit company.” But there’s a lot of distance between Apple and BlackBerry, and I don’t think marketing is the key differentiator here. RIM needs to put out some stellar devices with great software and apps. If you do that, the marketing comes more easily. Right now, RIM doesn’t have much of a story to tell, and a new CMO won’t change things. RIM needs to find something that it can do better than others. It can’t just reach parity with iOS and Android and hope it can compete again.

That’s why I’m worried about Heins. He doesn’t seem prepared to really light a fire under RIM. And with Lazaridis and Balsillie hovering over him, I wonder if he can break free of their legacy quickly enough and forcefully enough to matter. We will see. We just have words from RIM here. The real test is what products we see and how quickly they come to market.

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